


to dream as the phoenix

by effervesce_illusion



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur as Harry Potter, Crack Crossover, Fix-It, I Took Creative Liberties, Master of Death, Merlin as Draco Malfoy, Morgana as Ginny Weasley, Reincarnation, Time Travel, because i Will keep merlin in slytherin, every adult at hogwarts is a questionable adult, kind of?, lapslock, look - Freeform, or masters of death?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:21:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26040307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effervesce_illusion/pseuds/effervesce_illusion
Summary: everything was said and done. everything should be said and done. and there were many places morgana thought she could be, but all of them were located in the afterlife, where the four of them made their peace after stabbing each other a couple thousand times only to realise it didn't matter because they were dead, anyway. not a single one of those places was here: alive, reincarnated, remembering, time-turned back to a child.alternatively: morgana is reincarnated, has an accident, and starts over. there's a balance to keep, and she is still a seer and a high priestess of the old religion, even if she doesn't put much stock in prophecy anymore. (after all, fate has never been particularly kind to her. not to her, not to merlin, not to mordred or arthur.)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92





	1. part i.

she had been fed dreams as a child, visions of the future. the more frequent the scene, the more inevitable it was. it was easy to pick up on that pattern; it filled her with a sense of joy to know that there was  _ something _ she could do other than wielding a sword in the castle and otherwise acting the epitome of a good ward. then she began to see recurring dreams of a dark-haired, tall villainess. she saw her face in a mirror one day and made the connection — the inevitability of fate, of turning on friend and family with magic crackling at her fingertips. and  _ that _ was when she knew she had magic, innate and running through her bones; it was easy to have it beckon towards the surface, easy for it to be controlled. it was wonderful. it was terrifying, too, because of the king and because of her visions. at first, she'd insisted to herself that she was good, that she wouldn't enter betrayal and a web of lies — and then merlin began to edge around her in distrust,  _ merlin _ , whose magic was so obvious. 

evidently, she was not allowed to be good, because fate wanted to play that unfunny sort of joke on the universe and on her. well, there was her middle finger to that, because she heard the prophecy of albion, king arthur, and merlin, and decided to play by the game and play so well that a prophecy was never fulfilled — that the world collapsed in on itself, changing destiny for the rest of time. and she played so well no one expected that she didn’t  _ want _ to be villainess — she had a good alibi, what with having to repress her magic and visions due to the king, and everything timed out perfectly so it seemed her break came from morgause pulling back her rose-tinted naivete instead of a long-known acceptance of the inescapable — and she played so intensively that she couldn't bring herself to feel terribly bad about destroying the prophecy. there was only so much grief and guilt one could entertain when most of you was full of spite at the world, at fate, at the stars laughing. embroiled in bitterness, perhaps blinded to the opportunity to stray. (but who would trust her? and who would want a half-lived life stuck in fear and stunted power? at least in betrayal, she had all the power she wanted at her fingertips, even if — well. she had mordred.) 

anyway, gwen did better than arthur ever could've, and anyone could quote her on that because she was right. so maybe she did the world a favour. maybe that was written in the stars of fate, too, and she just played right into their nonexistent hands. maybe all the prophecies were wrong, in the end, and the universe just felt like playing a massive game of betrayal with them all, and perhaps they should all be pitied when all's said and done — her, merlin, arthur, mordred.

everything  _ was _ said and done. everything  _ should _ be said and done. and there were many places morgana thought she could be, but all of them were located in the afterlife, where the four of them made their peace after stabbing each other a couple thousand times only to realise it didn't matter because they were dead, anyway. not a single one of those places was here: alive, reincarnated, remembering, time-turned back to a child.

there was something to be said for going back in time. ginevra weasley, the seventh daughter of the seventh son of an ancient magical family with latent talents shimmering in blood, was intimately familiar with the concept of time and magic. there was also something to be said for going back in time, knowing that you were a reincarnation of a feared and respected high priestess of the old religion who also had done a blood-sharing ritual with one of your current ancestors. morgana was also now intimately familiar with that concept of time, magic, and reincarnation. however, those two concepts raised questions: why did she remember? why was she even reincarnated, point-blank? and why was she a child again, with latent magic now active and shimmering out of her body like some kind of angelic aura? 

why, when everything was said and done, did the universe decide that no, morgana was not done with its practical jokes?

it started, like most things tended to do for her, with a premonition: a soft curl of dread like a strip of satin slipping down smooth skin and nothing more. however, time was short (how ironic, looking at it with the lens of hindsight) and the final match was soon to start, and ginevra weasley was more fire and spontaneity than was probably healthy for her. (the memories and lives balanced each other out, then, given all that morgana was in sharp contrast to ginevra. and at the core, the same thing: deathly persistent and talented.) so the holyhead harpies' chaser took off on the newest firebolt on the market, speeding through the wind like she was trying to outrace light itself on nothing more than a broom; dread was not so much pushed away as it was overwhelmed with the rush of adrenaline, the thrill of flying singing through her. 

everyone, of course, made mistakes. some mistakes were more fatal than others; for example, the guards of the stadium who had slipped out of their offices and places of duty to go round back and smoke the magical variant of weed, and thus allowed the death eater remnants to dismantle everything but the anti-apparition ward and slip into the stadium with their wands and cursed objects. the next thing that happened was pandemonium.

ginevra weasley had been in war. she had not expected to be in it again, given all that she had already been through (and even then, she'd had some grudges against fate, it seemed), but she knew how to shield and attack; she knew how to duel while maintaining spatial awareness for more threats and potential covers. creativity had saved her in the past and it would've saved her now if she hadn't noticed a shimmering time-turner hurtling for the ground. the well-kept secret about time-turners, and why they were kept in the ministry of magic, was that upon breaking, the time sand itself could send living beings back in time — randomly, at its discretion rather than at the being's. in the ministry of magic, all the time sand had been contained and in one chamber, but here, in such close quarters... she stretched her arm out, sliding under any number of spells, and seized the small hourglass. it was coated in magic, magic that yanked at the fibre of her being in search of a soul to take; ginny recognised the magic and its purpose in the tenth of a second and made to drop it, too late. it found her soul, tried to latch to it — but the thing of reincarnation, or perhaps just of the essence of her, or perhaps the spell being weaker than it should, was that the soul would not leave her body.

the time turner shattered. some locked part of her soul spilt out when the curse unlatched itself from her, instinctively writhing away from the explosion of a magic greater than it. the aurors, including her brother and boyfriend, who had just entered the stadium and were preparing to apprehend the group of fifty-or-so witches and wizards, froze. the rest of the stadium froze, too, as time paused and a brilliant golden glare flashed across the stadium, enveloping ginny.

and now — now, here she was, in a child's body, with memories and trauma that should not belong to a child. morgana and ginevra both, but neither; a soul with the same essence but the ability to be so many different things. good or evil (and what an arbitrary distinction those two things were), water or fire, planned or spontaneous, but always ruthlessly pragmatic, cleverly determined. it was pleasantly easy to reconcile the distinct parts of herself as if the universe had finally looked upon her and said: "your life will be terribly difficult for the most part, but at least we won't give you schizophrenia," which was really the minimum the universe could do for her, considering all the other bullshit it was throwing at her. and, well, at least she had been thrown into a body she was familiar with, rather than a stranger's. between the knowledge ginevra had of herself and her childhood and the ability morgana had to depict an untroubled portrait even if internally there was a lot of screaming, ginny knew she could pull this off. 

given that the sun was centred in the blue sky, blazing heat onto her standing in the grass outside of the tilting, multi-levelled, obviously-magical house, it was afternoon and summer. beside her was ron, looking extraordinarily small and pathetic next to the image of adult auror ron, and next to ron were fred and george, both of whom had the most awful acne on their faces. with the acne, it was obvious that fred and george were about to enter their third year at hogwarts — there had only been one year when they came back from school with red spots all over their faces, after all. they found a way to get rid of it very quickly, seeing as it clashed with the bright red hair.

"up for a quidditch game, ronniekins?" fred said, tossing a quaffle in the air. "you're gonna have flying lessons this year, anyway. we can see if bill or charlie wants to play, too."

"what about perce?" ron said, already standing up, grass stains on his shorts.

"he won't want to," george said. "i'll go ask bill and charlie, they're probably talking with dad about ministry and stuff again."

"can i play?" ginny said, knowing this question was expected in the same way she already knew their answer.

"nope!" fred and george said at the same time. fred continued. "mum'll be furious if we let you play, anyway. you can go help her with the chores or something." 

ginny sighed. "i'll watch, then," she said, a stubborn set to her jaw as she glared at the twins, waiting for them to disprove her. they just laughed as ron trotted off to get five brooms. when they had all regrouped, split into their teams, and took to the air, ginny climbed up one of the trees and sat amid the branches, watching fondly as the old cleansweeps rattled along, slowing significantly for swerves, so much unlike professional quidditch. charlie was easily the best player, but ginny could see the way he slowed his turns more than necessary, gave up open positions for harder shots, to help the twins and ron win.

she hadn't seen fred in so long — five years. there was a twisting ache of grief, tilted up with hope; was the future she had lived in meant to be changed? was that why, somehow, the universe threw magic and coincidence at her, tumbling her backwards in time? a small part of her whispered,  _ you won't know until you try _ , and a smaller part of her whispered,  _ can things go worse?  _ except ginny had two lifetimes of spite against fate and one lifetime of defying prophecy already, so her navigation was already set.

this school year was the year of quirrell-with-voldemort-on-the-back-of-his-head, the philosopher's stone, and ron befriending harry. nothing should go wrong if she didn't interfere so she wouldn't — and she also didn't want to draw the headmaster's attention. back in the middle of the war, he had seemed a beacon of hope, a paragon of virtue and wisdom, an old man with all their best interests at heart. he had not seemed like a schemer who would send harry to his death like a lamb to the slaughter, as professor snape had so elegantly put it. he had not seemed like a man who would willingly leave sirius black in a wizarding prison, leave harry untrained to reasons of "youth" and, she suspected, "things he couldn't know if he were to be controlled like a pawn". he had not seemed like a man with a seven-year plan that left too many people in the mercy of chance and fate, and both chance and fate were bloodied daggers. and perhaps dumbledore truly hadn't known how to shorten his plan, how to account for the varied circumstances and surprise elements that had presented themselves, but she knew. she was from the future and the past, with both the old religion and modern magic mastered.

harry had told her many things about the war — and she told him about hogwarts in her sixth year — in the hopes that they might better understand one another before giving their relationship another go. it was enough for her to create a plan off of.

there was a diary, which would fall into her lap (or rather, cauldron) around this time next year; there was ravenclaw's diadem in the room of requirement; there was slytherin's locket in number 12 grimmauld place under the house-elf kreacher's care; there was hufflepuff's cup in the lestrange vaults, which she might have to break into and on that note perhaps she should break into the lestrange vaults at the same time as quirrell-with-voldemort's break-in; there was the gaunt ring in the old gaunt house which had cursed professor dumbledore's hand when he attempted to wear it; there was harry. as a high priestess of the old religion, she knew how to extract a soul fragment from an object, but it was long and tedious and she'd have to somehow convince harry potter — who was not exceptionally rational or trusting as a child — to trust ron's younger sister for an entire day as she chanted and her eyes glowed gold and she attempted to pull a black wisp from his forehead. it was a good thing that the ritual didn't hurt or involve the person's blood — it would involve her blood, though. at least the other horcruxes would only take a few hours — living containers were exasperating to deal with.

but, if she played her cards right, which morgana was generally very good at doing, she could be rid of the dark lord by her first year at hogwarts, and then maybe the entire school would have a regular, normal education for once in the seven years that harry potter graced the castle.


	2. part ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just cannot stop thinking about fred and george weasley. who thought it was a good idea to kill one of them off anyway.

molly weasley was the sort of mother to helicopter, especially over the youngest daughter among six older brothers. ginny, herself, made a noticeable effort to slip past her inspection, and after herculean effort, it would work. mainly, it required a good amount of distraction on the part of her brothers, which was not difficult to do — fred and george, notorious for their pranks, were more than willing to let their suggestions be guided by a giggling ginny who seemed to have no ulterior motives. then, amid fireworks or dungbombs or spilt water buckets dangling on some elaborate pulley system the twins rigged, ginny would slip away. her eyes glowed gold as wind whipped around her for a second and, when the dark wind ceased, she would have dissipated and appeared somewhere else.

the first time this happened was four days after her arrival. in those four days, she'd helped fred and george plan a ruckus in the kitchen — all manner of traps and springs under each drawer, bowl, and pan — and as molly weasley violently waved a wooden spoon at the grinning pair who could not care less that ginny didn't get an ounce of the blame, she slipped out the door, into a crevice where a darkened wind whirled around her. when the wind settled, she had disappeared and reappeared in number 12 grimmauld place, bypassing any wards on the house — it was a side-perk of being of the old religion, apparently.

the moment she appeared inside grimmauld place, in perfect view of the portrait of walburga black, the rather unpleasant woman began screaming insults. morgana, who had read arthurian legends and seen herself described as a vicious, desperate slut (particularly for lancelot, who frankly, morgana had never even looked twice at) in french spin-offs of the truth — not that she was a benevolent faerie, either — couldn’t find herself bothered at the accusations of ‘blood-traitor’. instead, she flicked a hand at the portrait and walburga black opened her mouth a couple of times, first looking confused and then silently furious. ginny turned away to silently watch as the townhouse responded to the spark of old magic; the bugs rolled themselves away, the dust was shaken off of curtains and portraits and vanished, the curtains straightened, the house’s latent magic rose in attack against the doxies and boggarts, and the windows let in more light than ginny ever remembered even after she and harry remodeled the house. the rooms seemed to expand in size. now, walburga black was watching her with more curiosity than hatred, but she remained silenced as ginny walked to the kitchens, where the fireplace had been expanded to a size larger than camelot’s kitchen’s fires, which were meant to be able to roast large deer and boar from arthur’s hunts. there was a new small side-door in the kitchen, locked — it probably needed some delicate silver key — and out of it, kreacher slumped out.

it seemed he recognised ginny’s connection to the old religion, too, which wasn’t exactly surprising as most magical creatures were connected to the old religion. immediately, eyes brightening and sickly grey tinge fading from his skin, his hunched posture fell away and he bowed. “my lady,” he said, strangely reminiscent of camelot and home.

“hello, kreacher. i came for the locket regulus black left with you,” ginny said. “i’m planning to decontaminate it.”

kreacher’s eyes widened with shock — old magic or not, ginny still appeared as a ten-year-old — but, as most house-elves tended to do, preferred action first and questions later. he went through the small side-door, leaving it open; ginny realised that it was a wine cellar, which made more sense as old magical houses were exceptionally stingy with giving that away, especially to owners the house didn’t like. the whispers of kreacher rummaging through his things drifted out the door and, moments later, there was a faint pop and he appeared with the locket wrapped in a bundle of white cloth. he handed it off to her.

“thank you,” she said, setting it down and unwrapping the cloth. the locket was near-indestructible with all the charms slapped on it, but there were no curses other than the horcrux, meaning the ritual would, hopefully, be shorter. with an impressively-intricate conjured silver dagger, she drew a line on her forearm, just deep enough to drip a circle of blood around the locket. the modern world might have considered it barbaric but they had also dropped nuclear bombs on each other to kill thousands, so ginny couldn’t find it in herself to care. as expected, the circle of blood caused the locket to open and a grey mist to explode out, hovering, trying to take form to fight for its survival. however, the beneficial thing about blood was its ability to contain without giving any information away, so the mist remained shapeless as ginny began to chant in a language long forgotten — the language of the old religion, half-forgotten with uther and fully disappeared with the advent of christ — her eyes glowing a bright gold as the magic knit itself together. finally, when ginny sensed that it had formed an invisible net, she redirected her focus, the words shifting on instinct as her magic swept up the sliver of soul and held it away from its container until grey turned black and crumbling, dissipating entirely. all in all, it had taken half an hour — that was good, as that was a reasonable time for her to come up with an excuse for where she’d been. kreacher was staring at her as the gold left her eyes, returning them to a hazel, and as the cut on her forearm completely disappeared.

“thank you,” kreacher said, a suspicious shininess in his bulbous eyes. he was sniffling.

“would you like the locket?” ginny said, offering the now-harmless necklace to the house-elf. kreacher did burst into wracking sobs, then, and ginny watched as he reverently took it and, with more stammered thanks, disappeared to presumably set it away safely.

“kreacher can be getting the lady a drink, or food, if she wants,” kreacher said as he popped back into the kitchen. he had an armful of sweets that looked like they were from honeydukes. “or kreacher can give the lady snacks to take back!”

he looked considerably more cheerful than ginny had ever seen the house-elf. she smiled in the way morgana had learned at a young age — it was generally very difficult to hate a pretty smile — and took the sweets. “thank you, kreacher. i’ve got to go home, so i’ll see you around.”

“if the lady is needing anything, just call kreacher’s name!” kreacher said, very enthusiastically, as ginny disappeared with a whirl of wind.

she materialised in her room, where she hid the sweets with both physical and magical means before clattering down the stairs. molly weasley was cooking and warily keeping an eye on fred and george, who were whispering in the corner, when she offhandedly asked, “oh, ginny, where have you been?”

“i was reading in my room,” ginny said easily, picking up a piece of potato from a finished dish. from the counter, charlie grinned.

“reading about the saviour of the wizarding world again, gin?” he said. ginny couldn’t force a blush to her cheeks so instead, she pointedly turned away from him and to the twins.

“fred, george, could you transfigure a piece of fabric to a notebook?” she asked.

“no magic outside of hogwarts!” molly interrupted before fred or george could reply.

“all right, mum,” george said as fred turned to ginny.

in an undertone, fred whispered, “sure. after dinner.”

the second time she snuck away was so she could get to the public library. harry had certainly introduced her to  _ some _ muggle inventions, but certainly not  _ all _ , and ginny had a feeling that surely, someday that knowledge might aid her. fred and george had, despite molly weasley’s measures against the use of magic in the summer, enchanted an entire army of water balloons to wreak havoc and even got the ghoul in the attic to join the ruckus. in that chaos, she slipped away right down the street and into the nearby town, where there were slow, ancient computers and stacks of books. that had passed about as uneventfully as a library visit might go, except for the part where ginny accidentally learned that old magic didn’t interfere with electronics. that, of course, opened a whole avenue of research and possibility for making computers resistant to modern magic, because frankly, google was a tool that the magicals needed. she spent a good amount of time for the next two weeks holed up in her room, alternately studying maps to find the abandoned gaunt house or studying variations of runes and spells that could work on electronics, all done under the ruse of re-reading the biographies of harry potter, of which she had a multitude of.

the third time, she didn’t need a distraction from the twins. in well-worn habit, she silently made her way out of the house at midnight, but instead of going to the broom shed to practice flying, she went around the house — out of sight of all the bedrooms — and wrapped a too-large cloak around her. “kreacher,” she called. the house-elf popped into existence next to her.

“my lady! what does the lady want kreacher to do?”

“could you take me to the village of little hangleton?”

kreacher nodded so vigorously that his large ears flopped about. he took ginny’s wrist and, with a faint pop, brought them to the edge of the village. the majority of the town and riddle manor was behind; in front was a derelict shack half-hidden by twisting trees which barely allowed the moonlight to filter through. the plants were ridiculously overgrown, and not a pretty kind of overgrown, and behind the house, the valley was barely visible.

“thank you, kreacher,” she said and began to make her way down the winding path, which, as it approached the shack, became wilder and wilder. the wood of the shack was half-rotted and there was a skeleton of a snake on the door, half off its hinges; the windows were shut and dirtied and, as ginny passed the wards and the ajar door, she noticed the thick layer of dust and time on the floor and flat surfaces. she held a hand out and a light flickered to life, hovering and casting the house in stark relief. the floorboards were creaky and rotted, questionable to hold her weight at best. she hurried, spreading her magic deep and wide to try and find that spot of contaminated magic that might give away the location of the gaunt signet ring.

the ring was well-concealed from detection; it took her rechecking the house a couple of times before she noticed the subtle change of magic and went to investigate it. when she pried open the floorboard, which evidently had been enchanted (it still was relatively easy to remove, the wood nearly falling apart under her fingers), the full force of the dark magic of the horcrux became obvious. she cut off a part of her cloak and used the fabric to pick up the ring. kreacher had followed her inside and was, for some odd reason, tidying up the place already, so ginny moved out of his way before she cut her forearm. this horcrux would likely take longer, for if her timeline was correct, this horcrux had a larger soul fragment than the locket had, and besides that, there was a multitude of darker curses on the ring that she’d have to deal with after separating the soul fragment from the container.

her eyes glowed gold, her magic lit up the room, and soft half-remembered words came floating through the air to call upon more ancient forces to shape her magic. a half-hour passed and the gaunt shack looked more like a minimalistic cottage; kreacher disappeared to the outside and, drifting through the now-open windows came the sounds of branches hitting the ground and the clicking of pruning tools. an hour passed and kreacher reappeared inside, the outside of the house looking an acceptable amount of overgrown. he went to the kitchen, where there was a sudden clatter of pots and pans; ginny barely noticed as her magic siphoned out of her at a higher rate, concentrated even more as she analysed and removed each curse. finally,  _ finally _ , the last one unravelled and the grey mist swirled up and out, caught in a web of her magic, turning black and crumbling to nothing. and that was the ring done with, too, although there was an unfortunate exhaustion creeping through her. she thought she might just stick to stabbing the diary horcrux with a basilisk fang or burning it with fiendfyre.

kreacher hurried up to her with a clear vial of pepperup potion. “sit and drink this,” he said. ginny did, noting to herself that she should, probably, start training her body’s physical and magical stamina, if she was so affected from a horcrux; all her magic may have squeezed into a tiny body, but that didn’t mean her body allowed for the same amount of power as a grown ginny or morgana.

“thanks,” she said after the steam had finished coming out of her ears. she slipped the ring on — immediately, it shrunk to fit her index finger. “you did well with the house.”

kreacher visibly perked up. “kreacher was thinking that the lady might use this for her experiments!”

ginny had forgotten that house-elves, after creating a bond with someone of the old religion, had the unique ability to feel when said person used magic. still, the idea itself was a good one — with the muggle-repelling wards and magic thrumming through the house, the ultimate test for an electronic’s usage would be here. she hummed in consideration. “that would work,” she said. now, to get a computer — well, she’d figure out a way when she got into gringotts. they had to go school shopping tomorrow, anyway. a plate of scones popped up on the coffee table.

“if kreacher may, the lady has vaults at gringotts,” kreacher said. “kreacher checked with the bank director and the lefay vaults are present. the lady can be using those funds for her research and maybe for kreacher to buy food and supplies for the cottage and townhouse.”

ginny was fairly sure that the townhouse was legally the possession of a living person, but if she could keep it in good condition for sirius, then she’d do it. “of course, kreacher,” she said.

the fourth time she slipped away was the next day at gringotts. it hadn’t been very difficult, in the end, as they all had to pile into a tiny minecart and so they opted to split up into three separate minecarts. ginny managed to latch onto one by herself and another goblin, who had immediately identified the old magic awakened in her.

“you must be the lady kreacher has talked about,” he said the moment they were alone. ginny nodded and she was immediately swept away to do blood and soul testing before they identified her as the first and last magical lefay. by the time she’d ascended from the depths of gringotts, where the lefay vault was as one of the first vaults, hurtling at ridiculous speeds, the other weasleys were staggering out of the minecart. so  _ perhaps _ she’d manipulated time a little bit. it was just a little bit and it wasn’t like she could give away her reincarnation yet. in any case, she came out with a small purse connected to her vault, allowing her to withdraw both muggle pounds and magical currency. before the weasleys could take her away for their shopping, though, the goblin — sharptooth — stood.

“mr weasley, mrs weasley, we believe your daughter may be eligible for one of our financial programs. we’ll have to talk to her for a little before we decide, so you could come back to the bank in roughly two hours for her.”

mr and mrs weasley exchanged a few looks, a few hushed words, and then they nodded, leaving after wrapping ginny in a hug.

“see you later, ginny,” mr weasley said as he herded ron and percy out.

sharptooth took her back into one of the conference rooms. “kreacher mentioned that you could fix horcruxes,” he said, eyes piercing as he gazed up at ginny.

“yes,” ginny said, waiting for the goblin to elaborate despite knowing what they were probably talking about.

“we normally do not insert ourselves into the affairs of wizards,” sharptooth continued, “but this concerns a goblin artifact.” ginny hummed. “it has been turned into a horcrux.”

“and you’d like me to extract the soul?” ginny said.

sharptooth nodded, folding his spindly fingers on the dark wood table. “yes. of course, you would get the contents of the lestrange vaults. the goblins would maintain the artefact.”

ginny supposed that was as good a deal as any, especially considering that helga hufflepuff’s cup had no power other than being a regular, albeit well-made, cup. and she wouldn’t have to break into gringotts, either. “certainly.”

it turned out, however, that the old magic wanted ginny to take more. she ended up as heiress apparent of lestrange and lefay, and as a result, the goblins gave her both rings. ginny set both of them under notice-me-not charms.

and later, when all was said and done and they had gone home with the knowledge that gringotts would pay for ginny’s hogwarts supplies, bill took her aside with worry on his brow. it wasn’t surprising, exactly, since bill was already working for gringotts as a curse-breaker and he knew that goblins didn’t just  _ give _ things away.

“what did you tell the goblins?” he said.

“nothing, really, except a house-elf apparently talked to them about me,” ginny said. “why?”

“the goblins didn’t take anything from you, did they? blood? magic?” he checked.

“nothing,” ginny said. “well, they took a cup back, but it was goblin-made.” cogs were turning in her brother’s head; no doubt he’d concluded that they’d given her a backdoor to a vault in exchange for the cup from the vault.

the fifth time she slipped off, she did so to pick up five used, cheap computers. before she modified anything, though, she arrived on the edge of little hangleton and used the trees for coverage, well aware of the statute of secrecy. there, after setting up wards to repel any and every living being, she began etching runes and casting spells until her five rough ideas to protect electronics against magic were in place. from there, she went to the small gaunt cottage for the trial: upon passing the wards, one fully exploded — she had the sense to cast a shield the moment it started to make a fizzing noise — another’s screen displayed the blue screen of death, and two froze while the last considerably slowed down. she took the last computer out of the wards and etched interlocking runes for speed before returning, where the computer exploded. ginny made note of the trial run in the transfigured notebook from fred and george before she began to contemplate the viability of creating a potion to maintain stasis on the computer so the speed would remain the same and submerging the computer in the potion without the computer dying. perhaps an alchemical solution, then, would be better? or, if she applied the spells and runes to the inner components of the computer rather than a blanket of magic. she went back to the post office of little hangleton and made an order for five more computers, delivered to her rented p.o. box. neutralising the side-effects of modern magic — namely, excess energy — was a bit harder than it seemed.

by the sixth time, bill and charlie had left for their work — bill to egypt and charlie to romania for dragons — and so it was a bit harder, but not impossible, to evade notice. in any case, by then ginny was fairly sure she had the perfect formula in a combination of alchemy, runes, and protective charms. merlin may have been the prince of enchantments, but in the earliest versions of arthurian legends she was known as the only one who could heal arthur’s fatal wounds. after all, she was high priestess, well-versed in ancient magic precisely like alchemy and runes, and a master of possibilities. it took the better part of three hours to modify the computers before she brought them into the gaunt cottage; once in, two of them slowed slightly, one heated considerably, one had its screen flickering on the edges, and the last one remained in perfect stasis. the first two hadn’t involved any alchemy while the other two hadn’t hit the perfect balance of scale and ingredients to be able to adjust its power to absorb excess energy. the last one, however, had found that balance. ginny brought that computer back to the burrow and hid it with her half-consumed pile of sweets from kreacher, which she suspected he was restocking when she was out riding brooms or practising her magic in areas out of sight of the burrow.

fred and george, however, noticed ginny’s absences. thankfully, they put it down to the fact that ginny was simply sad that the two of them and ron were going to hogwarts and she would be home alone and suffering. one of them sidled next to her after dinner.

“ginny!” george sang. “you’ll have to write to us at hogwarts for prank ideas! we’ll even enclose photos for your pranks!”

molly immediately turned, looking exceptionally fierce. “you will  _ not _ , george,” she said.

“yes, mum,” fred said. he turned to ginny. “we’ll send you loads of post, though. maybe even a couple of howlers —”

“you will  _ not _ , fred,” molly said.

“yes, mum,” george replied. “ginny, race fred and i.” he jerked his chin to the broom shed. ginny grinned and, running off before molly could say a word, made a beeline for the brooms.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and ginny/morgana bemoans idiocy

the gringotts break-in occurred precisely on the day she remembered it: harry potter’s birthday. it was a reassurance that all the things she’d done thus far weren’t affecting the timeline, and that was all the reassurance ginny needed to relax and submerge herself completely in internet learning: coding, biology, muggle literature like  _ moby dick _ (which perhaps would look odd in a ten-year-old’s hands, but she was much more than a ten-year-old), chemistry, and history — from the battle of milvian bridge to electricity’s invention. (perhaps she should mention to her father the benefits of a muggle library.) beyond that, there were all manner of crafts and diy project inspirations online. as the final months of summer wore on, she’d made a bulletin board, a compartmented container from glass shards (rearranged and soldered together), and a sweater for errol. making the sweater for errol had reminded her of the predicament of scabbers living among them; she decided to put off dealing with it for now, at least until she knew the dark lord was gone.

finally, long days of sun and warmth rolled to an end and ginny found herself in mr weasley’s magically modified ford angela. there, she squeezed between ron, who wore too-short jeans — there was a benefit to being the only daughter, and that was that she didn’t have to deal with older sibling castoffs like ron did — and percy, who looked impeccable. fred and george were on ron’s other side as percy had vehemently opposed having to sit next to the twins, and considering their treatment of percy, that was a valid wish.

an hour of jostling passed before mr weasley pulled the car into a parking space at king’s cross station. “go on, then,” mr weasley said, unlocking the doors. he still had to take the car to the ministry for work and besides, after the hogwarts express left, mrs weasley could just as easily side-along ginny back home. “have a good year, boys! behave!” he called as everyone piled out, taking their trunks from the roomy backseat, and began walking towards the entrance of the station. ginny took her mother’s hand as she tried to remember how running into harry at the train station went. her memory of that wasn’t perfect, but she could probably imagine how a younger ginny would react to learn that the boy who asked for directions was harry potter.

“you’ll be at hogwarts in no time at all, ginny,” percy said in his pompous but overall caring kind of way. he patted ginny’s head.

“yeah, ginny, you’ll be an ickle firstie like ronniekins in no time!” fred said. percy glared at him as ginny giggled and ron flushed.

“quiet down, children — king’s cross station is always packed with muggles, of course, and we’ll be late soon. better hurry,” molly said, sounding faintly vexed as she led them closer to platforms nine and ten. “now, what’s the platform number?”

“nine and three-quarters,” ginny said. “mum, can’t i go —” she began, meaning crossing the barrier first. evidently, molly interpreted it as going to hogwarts.

“you’re not old enough, ginny, now be quiet. all right, percy, you go first.” and percy, soldier-like as always, marched across. “fred, you next.”

“i’m not fred, i’m george. honestly woman, you call yourself our mother? can’t you  _ tell _ i’m george?” fred said.

“sorry, george, dear,” molly said without even glancing towards the twins, who were both smirking.

“only joking, i am fred,” he said and went off, too.

“hurry up!” george called, and soon after he was going, too. ginny was suddenly aware of another magical presence, a familiar signature — she turned and sure enough there was a green-eyed, black-haired boy.

“mum, he looks lost and he’s got an owl,” ginny said.

molly looked over. “oh, he must be a first year, too,” she said. the boy was cautiously approaching them. “hello, dear,” she said. “first time at hogwarts? ron’s new, too.” and she pointed at him.

“yes,” said harry. “the thing is — the thing is, i don’t know how to —”

“how to get onto the platform?” harry nodded. “not to worry,” molly continued. “all you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. go on, go now before ron.”

“er — okay,” said harry. ginny made a note for when she took over the wizarding world to ensure that getting onto platform nine and three-quarters wasn’t quite so ridiculous.

then, when he disappeared, ron went, and then molly took ginny through. the vision of the packed station with the long scarlet train was overly familiar now — fred and george’s friend, jordan, was showing off his tarantula, and the familiar face of neville longbottom was bemoaning the loss of his toad to his grandmother. animals wound themselves through the station, owls hooting towards each other and cats circling legs. hopefully, no one was allergic.

“ron, you’ve got something on your nose,” molly said, taking out her handkerchief. ginny watched as ron was subject to intensive rubbing.

“ _ mum _ — geroff.”

“aah, has ickle ronnie got somefink on his nosie?” said george.

“shut up,” ron said without much bite.

“where’s percy?” molly asked as percy came striding into sight with his newly changed robes, prefect badge — which he’d bragged about for a while — pinned to his robes. in classic percy fashion, he excused himself, ignoring the twins’ teasing and enduring a peck on the cheek from molly. then, she turned on the twins. “now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves. if i get one more owl telling me you’ve — you’ve blown up a toilet or —”

“blown up a toilet? we’ve never blown up a toilet.”

“great idea though, thanks, mum.”

“it’s  _ not funny _ ,” she said, at odds with ginny’s laughter. “and look after ron.”

“don’t worry, ickle ronniekins is safe with us.” which was a lie — first, there was the question of scabbers, and second, there was the entire philosopher’s stone debacle waiting to happen.

“shut up,” ron said.

“hey, mum, guess what? guess who we just met on the train?”

“you know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station? know who he is?”

“who?” ron asked.

“ _ harry potter _ !” the twins exclaimed in sync.

“is he really?” ginny asked.

“the poor boy isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo, ginny, you can’t go up and see him,” molly said, probably a warning just because of ginny’s frequent alibis of reading said potter’s biographies.

“asked him. saw his scar, it’s really there — like lightning,” fred said.

“poor  _ dear _ — no wonder he was alone, i wondered. he was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform.”

ginny didn’t particularly remember politeness so much as stuttering, but — well, all right, then. “never mind that,” george said, “do you think he remembers what you-know-who looks like?”

“i forbid you to ask him, george,” molly said, suddenly very stern. “no, don’t you dare. as though he needs reminding of that on his first day at school.”

“all right, keep your hair on,” george said right as a whistle sounded.

“hurry up!” molly said, ushering the three boys onto the train. they leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye as ginny forced some tears into her eyes.

“don’t, ginny, we’ll send you loads of owls,” fred said.

“we’ll send you a hogwarts toilet seat.”

“ _ george _ !”

“only joking, mum.” and the train began to move; molly waved as ginny, half-laughing, ran along until it gathered too much speed. there, she stopped and waved until the scarlet blur had disappeared, feeling an oddly childlike euphoria from the experience.

as promised, throughout the school term, weekly letter after weekly letter was delivered by the school owls. fred and george mainly wrote to her about pranks — through their correspondence, she was introduced to lee, who would scribble commentary on the sides of the letters — while percy’s missives were incredibly detailed day-to-day, class-by-class accounts. frankly, ginny was certain that percy had never had a single detention. ron’s letters came less frequently, but they came all the same, with descriptions of his classes and hints to the adventures they were getting up to. there was also a good amount of creative insulting in relation to draco malfoy (who, for the oddest reason, was in ravenclaw this time around, but still unpleasant). bill and charlie wrote, too, but as they were on different continents and overall their work was not exactly pg or even pg-13 at times, ginny couldn’t glean much information from those letters. so she spent most of her year helping molly with chores like de-gnoming the garden, flying with ron’s broom, training her magic in the gaunt house with kreacher, and browsing the internet and learning things like calculus and french out of sheer boredom.

finally, it neared christmas break and ron sent back a letter letting them know that he wouldn’t be going home for yule. ginny wrote back and mentioned that she’d been learning quite a bit of magical history before slipping in the fact that nicholas flamel created the philosopher’s stone. if they didn’t figure it out then — well. they were idiots.

the benefit of having bill and charlie but not the twins or ron home for break was that they could play a modified version of quidditch, especially as molly was more willing to let ginny near a broom when it was the holidays and there were other adults present. she claimed a chaser position and, glad that she’d trained, joined charlie’s team and tried to get the quaffle past arthur weasley, who was playing keeper.

“have you been sneaking out to practice, gin?” charlie called as he watched her swerve neatly around bill and toss the quaffle into the marked-off goal section.

“maybe!” ginny called, flying back to the centre of the field. molly made a choked off noise from the sidelines.

the downside of having bill and charlie but not the twins or ron home for break was that there was no one to distract ginny from hearing molly harp on bill’s most recent goth fashion choices or hearing molly fuss over charlie’s new burn scars from dragons.

in any case, when break ended, ginny fell back into her normal schedule. the year was infuriatingly boring — at least in hogwarts, there was an entire castle with moving staircases to explore. frankly, the dreams she was having about the past of hogwarts, tom riddle, and dumbledore might’ve been the most interesting parts of her year thus far.

then, of course, easter approached. ginny had to go about her daily routines pretending that her dreams did  _ not _ feature baby dragons being hatched in hagrid’s hut and a detention in the forbidden forest that ended with a hooded figure drinking unicorn blood. technically, she  _ knew _ the year would turn out fine, but  _ still _ — how unlucky, or how dumb, did one have to be to have all of  _ that _ in their first year of hogwarts? admittedly, in  _ her _ first year, she’d gotten possessed by a horcrux, but that had only been one year. when she got a letter from ron talking about dragons and detention for harry and hermione, ginny couldn’t even feign surprise in front of molly.

and the year continued; the letters grew less and less frequent, especially as exams were rolling around, and dreams switched to giant chessboards, two-faced professors burning to ashes, flying keys, mirrors, and devil’s snare. ginny forced herself to pretend surprise when molly told her and arthur over dinner the entire philosopher’s stone fiasco occurring in the depths of the school. she abruptly cut off when she saw the salt fly over to ginny’s bowl and season her food liberally — molly didn’t even scold ginny about adding salt so blatantly, but she  _ did _ gape. a moment later, so was arthur.

“ginny — is that —  _ purposeful _ ?” molly said.

ginny jolted, just realising, and the salt sprayed an overabundance in her food. “i — i’m going to get another plate,” she said and physically stood and walked over to the cabinets.

she did not get a break from molly weasley’s hawk-like gaze until her brothers came back home.


	4. part iv.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she realizes she's not alone! a boon. (or: the reuniting of three souls who know each other Too Well)

insomnia was nearly an oasis. dreamless sleep potions had no effect on  _ her _ dreams as a seer, not now when she had been high priestess of the old religion (was she still? that was a question to ponder) and so instead of being treated to flashes of different, loosely related futures and alternate outcomes like some alternate version of doctor strange, she’d stay up. that didn’t stop the premonitions or the ideas of future that flitted through her head, but it was better than seeing a full war pan out in her mind every night. she’d taken to avoiding any opportunity to go to the crystal caves, too, despite her magic singing under her skin for it.

it probably meant she should be a responsible high priestess and go to the crystal caves to see whatever they wanted to tell her. and between dreams of harry locked behind bars, voldemort-the-spirit swirling through forests of albania rather angrily, and lucius malfoy just-as-angrily plotting in his library, ginny thought she’d seen enough. it wasn’t like she could escape for a long time, anyway, because she still had  _ family _ to talk to and she’d used the alibi of reading harry potter’s biographies a bit too often.

fuck, but she was going to have to go to the crystal caves at night, wasn’t she.

right as the thought occurred, kreacher popped up in her room as if summoned. “is the lady wanting to go anywhere?” he asked, successfully bypassing all the wards as a creature of concentrated old religion.

not for the first time, ginny contemplated how easy it would’ve been to kill harry if lord moldevort just bothered to make a house-elf friend and asked it nicely to, pretty please, take care of a literal infant. or, perhaps, if he’d just accioed harry and defenestrated him. wizards were really growing  _ boring _ as the centuries passed. her father — uther, not arthur — might have ordered a public burning, delivered an impassioned speech on the evils and corruptions of magic, and had the baby tied to pyre and all!  _ that _ was more creative than anything the dark lord had come up with, and significantly more terrifying. camelot, if she remembered correctly, had a good amount of cold iron — which, thankfully, was incredibly rare nowadays.

“yes, the valley of fallen kings. you’ll be able to get in if i’m next to you — or you  _ should _ be, i might still be the high priestess,” ginny said. “maybe i’ll transport us.” so kreacher latched onto her and with a whirl of wind, they landed in the valley of fallen kings. it was a strip of land long forgotten by modern man and close to the origin of all magic; as a result, the land thrummed with it, and it seemed to have only grown stronger through the centuries. kreacher, ginny noted, had never looked so at peace.

she let instinct guide her through grass and forest, moving towards where the magic was strongest; the crystal cave was difficult to find at first, but memories of a past life counted as having been, and so her feet led her down a familiar path until, through the brush, she spotted the opening. the cave was large and extended deep within the mountain, where it would probably be pitch-dark if not for the glowing white crystals. ginny immediately beelined for the one tugging at her fingertips, its magic tendrilling out as if telling her that it had secrets to whisper and share. her hand latched onto it and immediately, its magic thrummed  _ through _ her.

this had never happened before. she made to drop the crystal, but it seemed soldered to her skin; in its surface was a scene with overlapping images of herself. there were so  _ many _ overlapping images, actually — her current body and morgana, then harry bloody potter and  _ arthur _ (wasn’t that incest. wasn’t that practically incest. what was the universe  _ playing _ at), and draco malfoy as merlin. mordred wasn’t on the scene, but she hadn’t expected him to be. she closed her eyes briefly, thinking very hard about everything  _ other _ than a future where she and harry  _ dated _ and  _ kissed _ and back in camelot they’d been half-siblings, and then opened her eyes again. they were green, reflected back in a blank crystal, along with darkened auburn hair.

what, exactly, had the old magic wanted to do other than shift her appearance and give her moral qualms? and apparently, neither potter  _ nor _ malfoy knew about their reincarnation and extra soul bit, although ginny would bet that a little of their old personality was peeking through — that explained draco being in ravenclaw and less of a git than expected, although a bit of old personality could only do so much for an entire childhood of being fed prejudice on blood supremacy.

what was she supposed to  _ do _ with this information? exasperation still tremored through her body as she set the crystal down and went back to kreacher, silently transporting them back to her room. it was, conveniently, dawn. kreacher, sensing her mood, immediately disappeared with a pop but not before the bed covers were folded down invitingly and a mug of hot chocolate appeared on the bedside table. she took dainty, small sips, sitting cross-legged on the bed and on the edge of meditation, trying to calm her mind before she caught up on some sleep.

when she awoke, it was because of molly’s screaming. “ _ beds empty! no note! car gone — could have crashed — out of my mind with worry —” _ and it went on and on. ginny closed her eyes and breathed deeply, cast a muffling ward around her room, green eyes flicking gold for a second, and then burrowed deeper under the covers and tried to ignore both the sunlight and the muted noise from downstairs, like the static from a television. it did not succeed, but ginny was valiant in her efforts to continue. it felt like an hour passed before the sounds and smells of the kitchen being used began to waft up. only then did she reluctantly squirm out of bed, immediately changing to a white short-sleeve with overalls — morgana was out of time, so she might as well update to the current style of what she’d seen at the muggle village. her magic worked out her hair, cutting down her preparation time by half, which was perfect as her stomach growled just then. there was something about travelling through the valley of fallen kings only to realise that you had once dated and kissed your half-brother that ended up making one feel extraordinarily exhausted and hungry.

“they were starving him, mum!” george said as ginny made her way down the stairs, barefoot. there was a faint premonition washing over her and for a second, she debated between breakfast and waiting it out to see who their visitor was. she opted for breakfast and continued down the stairs.

“and you!” mrs weasley said, turning to cut a piece of bread and butter it. ginny entered the tiny, cramped kitchen; her eyes landed immediately on a shock of black hair, standing out amongst the other redheads.  _ goddess _ , but she couldn’t catch a break!

“good morning,” she said, took the seat next to fred, and began to spread jam on her bread. “what happened last night?” she asked and avoided looking at harry.

fred grinned — a shark that had scented blood. “we went and rescued harry from his relatives last night. you know, the one you’ve been talking about all summer.”

ginny, once again, couldn’t force herself to flush, so she raised an eyebrow. “i rather thought  _ you _ asked ron to tell the story of his first year,” she said and took a bite of her breakfast. fred and george both looked  _ thrilled _ by the turn of events where ginny grew a spine at an early age. “didn’t you promise to watch over ickle ronniekins, anyway? how’d that happen?”

“trying to find a hogwarts toilet seat to send you, gin, so we were distracted,” george said.

“oh, another broken promise,” she said. her eyes flicked gold for a second and in front of her, tea started to make itself.

“gin, what’d you do to your eyes?” ron said suddenly.

“they’re green! ginny, were you trying to look like the saviour of the wizarding world?” fred asked, glee in his voice.

“i thought you pranked me last night and did something to them, actually,” she said, lies easily rolling off her tongue. it was a perfectly timed realisation, too, so no one noticed her magic except for harry,  _ of course _ , whose eyes were fixed on the self-stirring teacup. it was a shame arthur hadn’t been so observant in camelot, because then he might’ve figured out that both merlin and morgana had magic and then they might’ve lived the stupid happily-ever-after trope. “but they’re pretty, aren’t they?”

“hold still, ginny, i’ll cast some diagnostics,” molly said, pointing her wand at her and conveniently overlooking the teacup as it finished and slid over to her. harry’s eyes were still tracking the movement. then, after brushes of magic had tingled and faded, molly frowned. “there’s no magic modifying your eyes, dear.”

ginny shrugged. “i’ll say if my eyesight starts to go. do i have to de-gnome the garden today?”

“no, dear, i was thinking your brothers could do that today.”

well, ginny would take small victories.

on second thought, approximately two hours later, small victories hardly mattered in the face of harry potter barging into her room. in fact, she would rather be de-gnoming the garden because that would mean being in public and putting off the inevitable confrontation.

“gana, what happened?” he began, looking infuriated as he closed the door behind her, until he noticed that she was reading on the computer. “wait, that’s a computer! you got it to work, then?”

ginny sighed, resigning herself to the terrifying knowledge that harry potter knew he was arthur pendragon and now had magic, to top it all off. she turned. “keep your voice down, arthur, the walls are thin.” her eyes flashed gold for a moment — harry visibly flinched — and she set down wards around her room. “relax, it was just to stop eavesdropping.”

“why are we  _ back _ ? why did i suddenly remember after meeting you?” he hissed, still standing. ginny supposed he wouldn’t be taking a seat anytime soon.

“well, that’s a complicated answer that i don’t completely know myself,” she said, smirking slightly. harry wouldn’t buy that she was smug about this, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. “it seemed that fate wanted us to play again, and here we are. i suppose talking with me triggered your memories? or maybe it was seeing old magic performed in front of you. anyway, i had an unfortunate accident in the future that brought me back to last year with knowledge of the reincarnations.”

“wait — does that mean —  _ merlin _ ?” harry said, apparently less concerned with ginny being from the future, with the knowledge to potentially bring the world’s destruction (even if she wasn’t against them and technically they’d died already so there wasn’t much to lose, arthur should know  _ better _ than skimping on all the other facts and possibilities), than the possibility of merlin’s reincarnation.

still, ginny let her lips curve into a purely  _ evil _ smile. “oh, i’m sure you’re familiar with his reincarnation,” she said. “have you ever wondered how merlin would’ve turned out if he were raised as prejudiced royalty?”

he groaned. “ _ no _ .  _ not _ draco malfoy — actually, that would explain why he sometimes doesn’t seem to understand what to do with his wand.” then he shrugged. “well, it could be worse! you’ll just show off some of your old magic and then we’ll get merlin back, good as new.”

“theoretically,” ginny said. “presuming i can get near him, as he thinks i’m a weasley.”

“fight him. then maybe his old magic will come out too.”

“arthur, do you  _ want _ hogwarts to crumble to ash when lightning rains down?”

and that, thankfully, seemed to be the end of the conversation. if her family noticed her new familiarity with the saviour of the wizarding world, they didn’t comment; however, fred and george would wink suggestively as if the idea of being with her former half-brother wasn’t revolting. she was altogether grateful for the arrival of their hogwarts letters and the proposed trip to diagon alley to meet up with hermione granger the next day; it meant that time was hopping along as it should and also meant they’d meet merlin in draco’s body soon enough, and hopefully then, their trio would form its balance. vaguely remembering (and seeing) the events of the visit to diagon alley was helpful, but not  _ enough _ .

however, the events came crashing back in frighteningly vivid detail the moment they reached flourish and blotts and saw the banner with gilderoy lockhart. harry’s eyes widened considerably.

“will you stop bloody  _ thinking _ so loud?” he muttered, for in ginny’s remembrance she’d let her occlumency shields drop.

“oh, sorry, your royal pratness,” she said. then, she registered what he said and her eyes widened. “you — oh, of bloody course you’re naturally a mind-reader, too.” harry had the audacity to  _ grin _ at her, with his suspiciously-lightened black hair and suspiciously-blue-green eyes. they were changing in salutation of past relics made present.

“i assume we’ll meet merlin here, then?” he said quietly. ginny didn’t spare him another glance as she walked in, beginning to look for her books but really just waiting for lockhart to notice harry’s presence.

indeed, after only a couple of minutes, there was lockhart pulling harry onto the stage. as harry’s betrayed gaze went to ginny, ginny smirked and picked out a book on wizarding customs. knowing harry  _ and _ arthur, the boy probably had a ridiculously patchy background on the magical world. in afterthought, she picked up another basic guide on politeness across magical cultures, both for communities of modern magic and old magic. when she’d flipped through some of the titles and picked out those she deemed most reliable, harry finally staggered over to her as mr malfoy and his son entered her field of vision.

“i can’t — here, you have these,” he said, attempting to dump the multitude of rubbish lockhart books into her cauldron.

“absolutely  _ not _ ,” she said, well-aware that draco was watching them. her eyes flickered gold and the books levitated up and into harry’s arms.

“ginny,” he groaned. she ignored him and turned to face draco, who was watching them with a dawning horrified comprehension. his grey eyes were turning blue  _ already _ and his platinum blond hair was going a tinge darker.

“merlin, he caught me in the act of accidental magic,” she couldn’t help but say. draco looked torn between starting a duel and laughing.

“well, merlin knows how, you performed magic without a wand and creepy gold eyes!”

draco was regaining his memories much faster than arthur, probably because merlin was much more in tune with the old religion and balance than arthur. “you two are  _ terrible _ ,” he said. “that was so obvious.”

“and yet no one noticed,” ginny said. “i’d always wondered what you’d turn out like if you were raised by uther.”

draco visibly grimaced. “yes, well, a complete and utter tosser, apparently. tell me i’m at least adjusting better than you two did.”

“i barely had an adjustment period. i had an accident, i’ll explain it later, but seeing old magic triggered the memory for arthur, who barged into my room at the burrow to demand answers, so yes i did it to you and yes, you’re doing better than him.”

“traitor,” arthur said, sounding remarkably deadpan.

“and don’t forget it,” ginny sang, smirking. “who knows, i might be planning to murder the two of you!”

“no, we got that out of our system in the first millennium of the afterlife,” draco said. “if anyone was going to murder, it’d be arthur. harry? what are we supposed to call each other, anyway?”

“i’ve just been going as ginny, or gana which we could stretch to be a nickname. we’re going to stick with draco and harry, though, or we’ll raise too many questions.”

“was anyone else reincarnated?” harry asked.

“no. not according to the crystals, anyway,” ginny said.

“you’re still a seer?” harry said.

at the same time, draco said in a hushed exclamation, “you went to the valley of fallen kings?!”

“inner sight is a soul ability, and obviously i went to the valley of fallen kings. when you’re a high priestess and magic tells you to go, you go, however much you don’t want to,” ginny said. “keep silent!”

the warning was well-placed, for the weasley patriarch and malfoy patriarch were catching sight of each other and walking nearer to them.

_ “morgana! hey, morgana! morgana, can you hear me?!” _

and ginny breathed a deep sigh. of course draco was now trying to re-establish a mental link, he could never wait for answers anyway.  _ “yes, i can hear you. it’s a long story, but we were reincarnated. there was an accident involving a cursed time-turner on my part, which sent me to just last year with knowledge of my reincarnation. you probably don’t remember the first time around, but you were in slytherin without the merlin influence.” _

_ “wicked,” _ he thought towards her. ginny turned back to where mr weasley and mr malfoy were now engaged in a brawl.

_ “they are children.” _

_ “so are we!” _ draco’s thoughts sounded much too cheerful, which admittedly was just the merlin effect.  _ “oh, bloody hell, are we back because they want us to take care of voldemuck?” _

ginny didn’t deign to reply to that one and, instead, watched as mr malfoy swept draco away as hagrid towered above and gently chastised mr weasley about picking one’s fights. the magic flowing off her body was detecting the signature curling maliciousness of a horcrux, slipped right between the pages of a transfiguration book mr malfoy had picked up and slammed into her spilt cauldron. that knowledge was particularly satisfying — now, all she had to do was wrap it in cloth, wait until school began, and then enter the room of requirement to dispose of the thing. the chamber of secrets certainly would not be opening this year. she hid her satisfaction — the satisfaction of a plan sewing seamlessly together — for the time being, though; everyone else was rather subdued, probably because mr malfoy had made some bigoted remarks against hermione and her non-magical parents. ginny noted that for some odd reason,  _ hermione _ did not seem to be particularly affected; rather, sharp eyes were staring at ginny.

normally, she didn’t randomly invade minds. she still had  _ morals _ , after all, even if they were… slightly skewed. but hermione’s gaze was actually rather uncomfortable, so ginny slipped right in, which was not terribly difficult as her mind was completely unprotected. the main desire she found was curiosity, tinged healthily with fear, along with the image of her and harry talking with their heads close. evidently, this had roused suspicion, as she hadn’t seen harry and ginny together before. the words ‘love potion’ flitted across her mind and ginny withdrew to prepare herself for a confrontation with hermione. if the witch was anything like she used to be, ginny would probably see an abundance of jumping to conclusions, scathing, and torrents of morality lecture.

ginny was right. the attack came the moment harry left; hermione seized ginny’s wrist and said in what was probably supposed to be a comforting, sisterly way and said, “have you and harry met before this?”

“he spent summer here,” ginny said. “otherwise, no. is something wrong?” she asked, feigning concern. ron and the twins were already edging closer to the corner the two girls were in, looking torn in the choice of intervention.

“you two really hit it off, didn’t you?” she said, still aiming for friendly but falling very much short. ginny laughed slightly.

“you could say that,” she said wryly. if she and merlin were dark and light, she and arthur were water and fire. but, well, they’d had millennia. she leaned in as if to tell hermione a great secret. “i’ve got a working computer in my room and that’s why he’s there, really,” she whispered.

hermione’s eyes immediately lit up and she opened her mouth. ginny covered it. “no one else but you and harry know, obviously, because i don’t want to try and patent this just yet since i doubt most people will believe an eleven-year-old. keep it quiet.” ginny could see this potentially becoming a problem, if hermione ever got it in her head to force ginny to do something about the runes and alchemy and spells, but if worst came to worst, a bit of mind manipulation never went wrong. besides, that was one person off her back. “harry and i talked a lot over it, so here we are now.”

speaking of summer conversations, harry had mentioned a house-elf, dobby, keeping mail from him in an attempt to prevent him going back to hogwarts due to a ‘great danger’. ginny had speculations as to what the perceived great danger was, and to whom dobby served, but she’d forgotten to act. as hermione hurried away to talk with ron and harry outside, ginny went to her room and summoned kreacher, who appeared with a pop.

“my lady, what can kreacher be doing for you?” he said, strangely cheerful. then he produced a perfect loaf of banana bread and ginny realised why. kreacher had been trying to perfect the recipe to a t since a week ago.

“hello, kreacher. do you know a house-elf named dobby, and might said house-elf speak to me?” ginny said. kreacher vigorously nodded his head.

“kreacher will be getting dobby immediately, my lady. he will be thrilled to meet you!” and with another pop, he left. ginny cut a slice of the banana bread right as harry walked into the room, not tailed by ron or hermione.

“oh, food. good,” he said, which was so distinctly arthur that she just rolled her eyes and tossed the knife at him for him to slice his own portion.

“don’t take too much, kreacher made that for me,” she said.

“who?”

“oh, a house-elf. he’s yours, technically, since i think  _ you’re _ the heir to the most ancient and noble house of black because your godfather’s the last male with the black surname,” ginny said. harry stopped eating.

“ _ what _ ? start from the beginning.”

except then, there were two pops and dobby and kreacher both appeared. ginny smiled, pleasant and sweet. “hello, dobby,” she said. dobby seemed to not be able to choose between her and harry; he settled for two bows to each of them and trying not to cry.

“my lady! and the honourable harry potter, saviour of our world!” he exclaimed.

“yes, i heard of your attempts to protect harry. i’m glad you’re doing it, but the threat is not present,” she said. “the artefact slipped into my hands, and rest assured i will destroy it as soon as possible.”

she waved off dobby’s breathless thanks and turned, instead, to harry, his story, and the books she’d picked out for him. he really  _ had _ been clueless — it was terrifying, actually, and a wonder that he’d even survived the first lifetime around.


	5. part v.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the sorting :)

there was a particularly odd quote ginny remembered from helen hayes, an american actress, who said that age was of no importance unless one was a cheese. ginny strongly, _strongly_ disagreed — she looked at the train full of schoolchildren to befriend and she instinctively found herself trying to isolate. it had been different with the weasley family — there, her first instinct was to pretend and blend in, acting her age. now that there were arthur and merlin — arthur, who was with ron and hermione, both of whom ginny had no particularly strong feelings for (especially with all of morgana’s assessment at the back of her mind), and merlin, who was with his normal pureblood companions, whom ginny also had no particularly strong feelings for. currently, all the school children were _immature_ , which was fine in the sense that morgana had been willing to protect a druid boy, but morgana had also never wanted to be a mother, so there was that. ginevra had also never been too hung up on children, either, an apple fallen far from the tree in her case. either way, ginny took a calming breath and adjusted her mind lens so that the students on the train were simply another group of people to integrate into.

she had always been good at acting and finding the right people.

this time, ginny let her magic lead her; if she didn’t like the magical aura of one of the compartments, she moved on from it. that left very few compartments to choose from, in actuality, and one of them was empty, meaning there were two valid options. she chose the one where the magic was stronger, like a beam of moonlight; when the compartment door slid open, however, she nearly laughed.

of _course_. sitting in that compartment was luna lovegood. the other magic took a background seat to hers, but of course it was there — sitting in that compartment were neville longbottom, susan bones, and isabella selwyn. selwyn would undoubtedly enter slytherin, where ginny admittedly believed she would be put, unless the headmaster somehow had compulsions on the hat. she knocked on the sliding door. susan bones was the one who opened it.

“hello, do you mind if i take a seat here?” ginny said, smiling. molly, who was on occasion remarkably overbearing, had been so today, insisting that she do ginny’s hair and select a dress, because ‘her darling little girl was all grown up’, and ginny was well aware how antiquated the dress was. still, it seemed to endear her to susan bones.

“of course!” she said, stepping aside. “i’m susan bones. you’re a first year, then?”

ginny nodded, taking a seat next to luna and across from isabella. “it’s nice to meet you. my older brothers are here, i think ron’s in your year.”

“ _another_ weasley?” isabella said, only _just_ politely drawling.

“seventh daughter of a seventh son,” ginny said, knowing the significance the numbers would hold, whether from a blood-traitor family or not. “i would say they planned it, but i’m not sure it’s true. i’m ginevra weasley, but please just call me ginny.”

“selwyn. isabella selwyn,” she replied, dipping her head slightly. “you found all of your books, then? i’ve heard that professor snape doesn’t quite like the weasleys, so you might want to brush up on potions.”

“oh, the twins have been including me in all sorts of experiments at home,” ginny said. “we’ve been discussing theory for potions in a sweet that could force a sickness on a student, and an antidote for it on the other end of the sweet.” then, she turned to the other two students in the compartment. “you’d be neville longbottom? and i’m afraid i don’t know you,” she said towards them.

“y-yeah, you can c-call me neville,” the round-faced boy said, looking a bit pale.

“hello, shadow phoenix,” luna said in a rather dreamy voice. “i’m luna lovegood.”

all sound seemed to cease as they stared at the platinum-haired girl. isabella broke the silence.

“so. what was that? shadow phoenix?” isabella said.

ginny smiled again. “i think i like it,” she said as she internally panicked, remembering that luna was a seer like her. so long as she didn’t give the game up, though — luna had returned to her edition of _the quibbler_ . “anyway, what house do you two think you’re going into? are there any tips that the twins would’ve missed telling me just to see me struggle?” she asked, and the train chugged on, like the conversation, until ginny successfully had everyone wrapped around her little finger. it wasn’t necessary, but it was a good safeguard and spectacularly satisfying, if not fun. a little later into the train ride, susan bones left for her other hufflepuff friends and michael corner appeared, staring for too long at ginny as their conversations went on. ginny vaguely remembered michael corner from the first time around, too, but she wouldn’t be making _that_ mistake again.

hagrid’s shout of “firs’ years! firs’ years over here!” was expected enough, just like the writhing crowd rushing to get off the train and take their walk either with hagrid or to the thestral-carried carriages. ginny fell in step with luna and isabella, cautiously edging down the steep, thin trail.

“have you received proper seer training?” ginny murmured when isabella drew ahead, rounding the bend quicker than her and luna.

luna glanced at her, eyes wide and unbelieving. “no, but i’m not a seer,” she said, the dreaminess of her voice losing itself in a wider gulf of uncertainty.

ginny smiled, a bit rueful. “you are. a seer of the old religion, so perhaps that’s why you didn’t make the connection.”

luna seemed to be hit with revelation. “you — _morgana_?”

“in another life. if you’d like training, you could ask the centaurs,” ginny said. “i won’t be much help until later, as i was never taught until i self-learned the basics.” they both fell silent as they reached isabella, who was waving them over to a boat.

“no more’n four to a boat!” hagrid yelled as a thin, blond boy enthusiastically jumped into their boat, rocking it.

“hi! i’m colin creevey, i’m so excited to be here! my dad’s a milkman, he didn’t believe it at first and neither did i, but i did so much reading on the wizarding world! everything’s so cool, my dad loved diagon alley! my brother, too, i’m really hoping he’s a wizard too so he can come next year and get sorted into gryffindor with me!” he didn’t take a single breath in between.

“hello,” luna said, humming. “i’m luna lovegood.” isabella selwyn merely turned away, sniffing slightly as the boats took off over the pitch black glassy surface of the lake.

“ginny weasley,” ginny said, nodding sharply in his direction before turning to isabella. “i suppose you’ll be in slytherin?” she let her tone dissolve into the range of casualness.

isabella nodded. “you don’t have any problems with that, do you?”

“no, i’ll either go gryffindor or slytherin. i suppose it depends on how traditional the sorting hat wants to be,” ginny said.

“but slytherin’s the house — it’s the house _you-know-who_ came from!” colin creevey said, pitching his voice to a low whisper.

“oh, yes, every slytherin will be a genocidal mass murderer, thanks for your concern,” isabella replied, straightening her stick-like posture even further.

“i think professor snape might have an aneurysm if i was sorted into slytherin,” ginny said, contemplative. “maybe i’ll ask the hat to put me in slytherin. oh, mum’ll be horrendously upset, maybe i’ll get disowned?”

“ _disowned_?” colin screeched.

ginny shrugged. “for not holding up the oh-so-honourable tradition of strong-arming the sorting hat into a gryffindor placement. it would be kind of terrible, but ginny lestrange has a ring to it, doesn’t it?” isabella selwyn recoiled and stared at her.

“ _what_?”

“i entertained a favour to the goblins and magic,” ginny said, nonchalantly shrugging again. “besides, with the rest of my family it’s like i’ve already been in gryffindor, so i might as well try a different house. and potter’s in gryffindor, too.”

“whoa, he’s in gryffindor too?” colin said, eyes lighting up.

“he’s a prat,” ginny said. “a dolt. don’t get your hopes up.” then she winked at isabella selwyn, who was now watching her with half-horrified fascination. “oh, the castle’s up ahead!” as hogwarts drifted into view, the attention on her ceased and she took that time to retreat into her mind, re-ordering her thoughts and defences so the sorting hat wouldn’t get any reincarnation images. that didn’t seem like the sort of thing the hat could keep from dumbledore and, while, she _could_ deal with him, that didn’t mean she wanted to.

as expected, it was the deputy headmistress who led them to the antechamber, telling them in no uncertain terms to wait quietly and perhaps freshen up — her eyes flicked to the drowned appearance of one of the unfortunate boys who had fallen into the lake — before she left them and went for the great hall. before she returned to lead them in a straggly line to be sorted, the ghosts floated through — helena ravenclaw and the bloody baron seemed to notice her, for whatever reason, but perhaps it was because ghosts could see auras and ginny was sure that her aura was out of place on a normal eleven-year-old. and then, _and then_ , they were finally led into the great hall, its hum of magic familiar to the nostalgic side of her brain. the same brain reminded her that her first year here, she’d been possessed by the dark lord and made to open the chamber of secrets to set a large, deathly, venomous snake on the castle inhabitants. someone was whispering about the enchanted ceiling while other students admired the opulence of the gold plates and floating candles; ginny, however, saw the tattered hat on the stool almost immediately. to her relief, this year both ron and harry were present for the sorting rather than being caught out in a car by the whomping willow.

ginny was doing a rather good job of tuning the deputy headmistress and was planning to tune the hat’s song out until, all of a sudden, the hat began to sing rather _incriminating_ words.

_in ealdor, village long forgotten,_

_this ancient castle was erected._

_here the founders came for refuge,_

_and soon our hogwarts was to be founded._

_now, magic has returned to home,_

_though hunith’s cottage has long collapsed._

_he heralds the shadowed phoenix and the future king;_

_on this ancient trio, the odds are stacked._

_the shadowed phoenix here arises,_

_and now may hogwarts again recall,_

_its promise of aid not lightly given,_

_for here comes her call:_

_to slytherin, children of ambition_

_to gryffindor, the brave and wild,_

_to ravenclaw, children of the wise,_

_to hufflepuff, the loyal and kind,_

_faced with shadowed light and hidden figures,_

_may all the houses again unite_

_for the greatest evil is that in secret,_

_and to overcome, bonds must draw tight._

_at this time i will sort you,_

_quarter you when young,_

_depending on your virtues,_

_you’ll feel the house where you belong._

_but know the perils, read the signs,_

_the warning history shows,_

_for our world is in danger_

_from invasive, deadly foes_

_and we must unite inside her_

_or we'll crumble from within._

_fate has told you, she has warned you..._

_let the sorting now begin._

well, it seemed like the thrice-cursed hat had some prophesying abilities. for a second, ginny’s gaze flickered to harry at the gryffindor table, who had paled; then she glanced at draco, who was staring at her with wide eyes, just as pale, as the rest of the hall muttered in quiet deduction. 

_“again?”_ draco murmured in her mind. _“we’ve got to try and save the world?”_

_“you couldn’t possibly think the fates just thought we’d have a nice vacation in the living realm,”_ she replied. _“poor harry, he looks like he might pass out.”_

_“yes, well, don’t tell him that.”_

_“do you know the internal threat?”_

_“the defence professor? maybe even dumbledore, who knows.”_

_“oh goddess, we’ve got to take care of both an insane dark lord and a corrupt light lord,”_ she realized. draco, who she glanced at again, choked on nothing as resignation entered his eyes.

“luna lovegood!” professor mcgonagall called. the platinum-haired girl went up to the hat.

_“a ravenclaw. seer. take care of her,”_ ginny thought as everyone applauded. draco caught her eye and winked.

_“got it.”_ almost immediately, draco scooted over to make space for luna to sit. _“she looks nothing like you. she’s much more traditional seer than you, i think.”_

_“right, because every seer you’ve ever encountered has been dreamy. what about taliesin? the druids?”_

_“well, there’s a point, but may i raise professor trelawney?”_

_“i heard that it’s fairly easy to enter ravenclaw dorms. are we going to be having problems?”_

there was a mental chuckle. _“but professor trelawney! she sees the death of one student every year, surely she’s not lying! and she’s convinced they’re all set in stone, too!”_

_“please, put your focus back onto luna and i’ll watch the rest of the sorting without thinking of trelawney.”_

professor mcgonagall called up isabella, who left ginny’s side with a slight smile which dissolved into a perfect mask. the moment the hat touched her head, it shouted “slytherin!” and isabella went off to the cheering house of snakes. one by one, students went on — there weren’t very many left. finally, professor mcgonagall reached the end of her scroll. “ginevra weasley!” she checked her occlumency shields as she strode to the centre, where the stool and hat were placed. when she was seated, she let the hat fall over her face, covering her eyes.

“ginevra weasley, what an interesting mind you have here. so many walls,” the hat murmured. ginny kept her walls up, projecting a new thought outside of them.

_“it is difficult to control them. it would take a while to try and move them.”_

the hat hummed, not completely bought over, but it couldn’t do anything either. “you are quite the enigma. now, your brothers have all gone to gryffindor, and you certainly have the mischief of your twin brothers and their bravery, but something tells me you don’t care to follow that tradition.” the hat paused, evidently waiting for her input.

_“you would be correct.”_

“you have quite the wit on you, too, and a strong thirst of knowledge. i told your twin brothers that, too… you’ve been helping them research their pranks and that speaks of theory beyond what this year will teach you. i fear you may even be bored at hogwarts, and ravenclaw will certainly fill your time with the opportunity of learning beyond your classes. your peers in that house will seek you out for help and will respect you, and the older years will gladly take you under their wing.” the hat let out a little snicker at its roundabout word play. then, it fell silent for a short while, digging through ginny’s memories. “ _oh_ , but this!”

ginny made a vaguely questioning noise in her mind.

“you have cunning in spades, miss weasley. all those pranks pulled for your brothers to take the blame and for _you_ to slip off to the muggle town to read and use the internet — cunning, though the stakes were low. and that train ride here, as well… using your magical sensitivity to find the powerful players in the younger years. now, what for ambition? do you, perhaps, wish to rise above your brothers? above the weasley name?”

_“i believe i wish to not die, first and foremost. independence would be my second goal.”_ ginny felt like she was being tested.

the hat hummed. “you met luna lovegood on the train, did you not? you must realise that some of the ravenclaws will not take kindly to her belief in blibbering humdingers and will move against her.”

_“i’ll protect her. it’s their loss, really,”_ ginny thought.

“and you have just met — loyal, certainly. and loyal to your goals and the safety of your family and friends. quite a rounded child. but hufflepuff would not be good for you… your secrets, if these walls are anything to go by, are deep and well-hidden, and hufflepuffs may feel alienated from that. you wouldn’t fit in as well, though i’m sure you’d still earn the school’s loyalty.” the hat paused, evidently waiting for ginny’s agreement. she gave it.

“you have extraordinary potential, miss weasley. your magic and your mind, both, and slytherin and ravenclaw will both help you to greatness. miss weasley, why do you learn?”

_“knowledge is power.”_

“indeed. then, miss weasley, slytherin or ravenclaw?”

_“you leave the choice to me?”_ thinking on it, it began to make sense; it was difficult to be a slytherin if one was given the choice and rejected it, for slytherins were ambition and carefully calculated risk. in actuality, ginny supposed every person given this choice between slytherin and another house _is,_ somewhere inside, a slytherin, for they calculated their future through the lens of their house.

“of course,” the hat said drily.

_“slytherin.”_

“very well, then, better be slytherin!” the hat shouted the house name out to the great hall instead of whispering it to her. the hall was shocked silent.

then, fred and george and percy — she knew she could trust them — rose up and began clapping from the gryffindor table. the slytherins, of course, remained rigidly shocked and silent as ginny set the hat down and went to her table, sliding in next to isabella.

“i did say it was gryffindor or slytherin for me. the hat tried to sell ravenclaw at the end instead of gryffindor, though,” ginny said. isabella broke from her stupor.

“well,” she said instead, “that was a surprise. look at the headmaster, he doesn’t look pleased.”

ginny glanced up — the headmaster was staring at her with piercing blue eyes. she felt him enter her mind and immediately threw up decoys for him to amuse himself with.


	6. part vi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. the author projects her questions on transfiguration to morgana/ginny  
> 2\. the depths of corruption and potential corruption are revealed and ginny bemoans her fate

she was not a stranger to writhing tendrils of loneliness, nor was she a stranger to side-eyes and ostracization. after all, she had been one of the most powerful high priestesses in history, raised as the king of camelot’s ward, and it was hard to trump that experience. the slytherins could try all they wanted, but they were mere  _ children _ , even the slytherin head of house who gazed on ginny with disapproving eyes and a grimacing scowl. in any case, she  _ was _ in slytherin, and sooner or later there would be a confrontation and she would prove her place there. it was only a benefit that, as arthur’s half-sister and thus part of his “soul family” (whatever the fates wanted  _ that _ to mean) she had the skill of parseltongue from harry being a horcrux with a parseltongue-speaking soul piece. it would certainly be amusing to see the reactions of the house — honestly, ginny preferred the confrontation to come sooner rather than later, as her magic was roiling under her skin, unsettled by all the magical commotion of the castle, and there was no doubt that a duel would help settle it. in fact, she felt much more like a caged panther than a shadowed phoenix, whatever the bloody hell a shadowed phoenix was supposed to be. (no, she knew what it implied about her. it was also just — well, it sounded  _ dumb _ .)

“so, a slytherin weasley,” said one of the girls in her dorm, sounding rather confrontational about that fact.

“indeed,” ginny said and didn’t bother hiding her amusement.

“there’s no way. you must have fooled the hat — imagine, a  _ blood traitor _ as a slytherin!” another girl said, scowling. isabella was delightfully silent, playing neutral for now.

“imagine, an eleven-year-old able to trick a powerful magical artefact,” ginny replied. “why would i want to be thrown into a house where everyone would hate me, anyway?”

“because  _ dumbledore _ told you to,” a third girl hissed. “because he wants to see our house dismantled from the inside.”

ginny scoffed. “oh, dumbledore’s not very pleased with my sorting, i don’t think.” it was true — his mouth had been decidedly drawn after she’d taken off the sorting hat, although he very quickly recovered his twinkling grandfather mien. now, if only she knew  _ why _ he was so upset…. admittedly, ginny didn’t know how far dumbledore’s machinations went, as harry had been unclear and much more willing to give dumbledore the benefit of doubt.

_ she _ was not, and for good reason. the next morning, a note showed up next to her breakfast plate, written in familiar, looping calligraphy. it called for her to meet the headmaster at eight o’clock, with no further information, and ginny decided she would simply stow it away and head to her first class, transfiguration.

_ “how’s slytherin treating you, shadowed phoenix?” _ draco projected as she swept her books into her charmed bag.

_ “i’m enjoying the isolation while it lasts, prat. do you want to help me coax a soul fragment out of ravenclaw’s diadem?” _

_ “when?” _

_ “after classes end, seventh floor left corridor.” _ she was already walking away as she thought it.  _ “perhaps we can drag harry into it, too, if he ever loses his attachment to granger and weasley.” _

_ “you don’t like them?” _

_ “ronald weasley has always been jealous. look at him now, he can’t believe he’s got a sister in slytherin. brat.” _

_ “you’re younger than him.” _

_ “only physically.” _ and now she was walking down familiar stone corridors, taking a turn, walking up a staircase and skipping over the trick step, and taking another few turns — the transfiguration classroom was already open, it seemed, and luna lovegood was already present, talking to a cat on the desk who ginny knew was professor mcgonagall, not just from knowledge of the future but also from the magic closely contained in the cat’s body.

“hello, luna, professor mcgonagall,” ginny said, taking a seat. she vaguely remembered the principles of transfiguration, although after all her new knowledge of muggle sciences, those principles of transfiguration didn’t quite make sense. after all, it would seem that transfiguration, at its fundamental and subconscious level, was the art of manipulating atoms to specific forms, either drawing in or releasing the necessary atoms and rebuilding bonds for the correct molecules, and in the case of creating something living, then adding an electrical impulse to start up the heart. which, of course, begged the question: if a transfiguration was perfectly done, why couldn’t it hold? and why couldn’t food be conjured, like everything else? after all, food was atoms and energy-filled bonds, just like the rest of the world; if one could conjure plants and animals, why couldn’t you simply have it arrive cooked? and  _ more _ pressing: if students were to approach transfiguration with a scientific lens, why would they need several different spells, when one to manipulate atoms would suffice?

she digressed. as other students began filing in, she folded an origami bird and, eyes going gold, gently blew. the crane lifted up, wings ungainly flapping for a few seconds until it smoothed out its flight and began to circle around the classroom. it landed in luna’s hair and refolded into a paper flower; the entire process went unnoticed by the transfiguration professor, but at least two of the slytherins had seen and they were staring at her rather uncomfortably. she ignored them and took unnecessary notes on theory before switching her matchstick for a needle with frightening, quick accuracy.

they had charms next; those two slytherins fell in line with her. they were twins — flora and hestia carrow, decidedly cheery and not at all what ginny remembered from her first life. but she supposed she wouldn’t have noticed them, not until they were in war and they had to choose a side because the dark lord had a grasp on their families. they were noticeably quiet, unsure of how to proceed after last night in the dorms where they’d vented out their thoughts regarding ginny being a slytherin.

“i suppose we got off on the wrong foot yesterday,” flora carrow finally said, breaking the silence as they walked up to where the charms classrooms were. “i’m flora carrow.”

“and i’m her twin, hestia,” the other girl said.

ginny smiled. “is this a restart? very well, i’m ginevra weasley. it’s a pleasure to meet you.” she barely meant a word of it, but that was the art of words.

the classes wore on, ginny continued enchanting her teachers, and slowly, it seemed like the slytherin first years were warming to her presence. lunch came and went — ginny studiously ignored draco’s words of steadily-increasing volume in her head as she went around holding court with the slytherins, much to one albus dumbledore’s confusion — and classes continued, and in that pattern of gaining points and allies, the day passed. the moment the last class ended, ginny gave the professor a bright smile, swept her books up, and with swift strides, headed to the come-and-go room before the other classmates could even finish packing their things.

ginny was markedly unsurprised when draco came striding around the corner, fifteen minutes after she’d arrived, looking a little flustered but concealing it under his pureblood training. “follow me into the room,” ginny said and walked past the empty wall once more. a large door appeared, opening as ginny waved her hand at it, and the two of them walked in.

“we’re looking for ravenclaw’s diadem?” draco said, looking around the vast piles of  _ stuff _ that the room contained. “can this room sort things into categories like books in one corner, clothes in another, jewellery and tiaras in another?” as he spoke, things began to shift.

“it’s the room of requirement,” ginny said when draco looked around, blue eyes wide in surprise. “oh, don’t look so shocked. you’re  _ magical _ .” she continued to walk down the piles until they reached the neatly-organised jewellery section.

“that’s it,” draco said, eyes glowing a brilliant gold as he crooked a finger to drag the horcrux closer to them. meanwhile, ginny prepared her blood for the ritual, dripping it from the cut in her forearm to encircle the horcrux.

“ready?” ginny said. “that is, if you remember how this ritual works at all.”

draco scoffed. “course i do, gana. on three — three, two, one.” and immediately, their words changed to a more sibilant language, flowing words silkily weaving outwards; the magic responded much quicker, this time, even though it was a larger soul piece. in the end, it had taken a little over an hour, in perfect time for them to get to dinner.

“one of us needs to talk to harry about this,” ginny said as she carefully pocketed the diadem, the cut on her forearm disappeared. “after all,  _ he’s _ the prophesied one to defeat the dark lord, so he really should know about the horcruxes and that he’s the last one we’ll do.”

“but that’ll —  _ he’s a horcrux _ ?! it’ll take a day and  _ gallons _ of blood to get that thing out! bloody goddess above, how many horcruxes did voldemuck  _ make _ ?”

ginny laughed. “ridiculous. if it’s both of us, it’ll probably only take half a day, and we could do it during one of the breaks. i’m nearly done with the horcrux hunt, anyway — there’s just a diary left, but we can just burn it.”

“i’ll tell him to sneak out after curfew and meet us here on the seventh floor, we can both explain the entire thing then. how  _ did _ you know all of this, anyway?”

ginny tapped her lips. “top-secret knowledge from the future.”

they entered the great hall and parted, but the moment ginny sat down at her table she was drawn into its politics. entering the hall talking to the malfoy heir, even if said heir had been sorted to ravenclaw, seemed to open most of the house to acknowledge her existence, if not embrace it like the first years had. ginny steadfastly ignored a burning blue gaze from the headmaster as she charmed her way through dinner; the headmaster wasn’t the  _ only _ one glaring unpleasantly, after all — no, there was professor snape, who had glared at her even as he welcomed them all to slytherin, and many of the older years, who gazed on her with something between disappointment and disdain at having a  _ weasley _ , goddess forbid, in their noble, pure house. when she’d finished her plate and made her excuses, she found herself with an hour left to spare; she retreated to her dorm room, spelled shut her curtains and laid down every ward she knew, and began to further write on magical interference with muggle technology and the steps taken to address such a problem. at fifty past seven, her magic curled around her, alerting her to the time, and she stepped out into the dorm. the carrows were already there.

“where are you going?” hestia asked, genuinely curious.

ginny let her lips pull down into a pout. “professor dumbledore wants to speak with me, but i’ve no idea why,” she said.

“i’ve heard he can do legilimency. don’t look into his eyes,” flora warned.

“thanks. i’ll be going, then, hopefully i see you soon.”

“i’m sure it’s nothing bad, don’t be dramatic,” hestia said as ginny left the room. the path to the headmaster’s office was not particularly familiar to ginny, as she had never been part of the golden trio, nor a significant troublemaker, so she’d only been twice — once at the end of her first year, and another time in her fourth, when her father had been attacked by nagini. still, the portraits willingly pointed her on the correct path until she stood in front of the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster’s office, five minutes early.

“professor dumbledore asked to see me,” ginny said. the gargoyle squinted its eyes at her.

“password?” it croaked out.

ginny had long burned the letter professor dumbledore sent, but she remembered the postscript for its oddness — why would she need to know that he enjoyed lemon drops? but it was worth a shot. “lemon drops,” she said, feigning confidence. the gargoyle creaked and with an unpleasant grating noise, moved out of the way to reveal a swirling golden staircase. she stepped onto it, reminded of an escalator when it began to take her up, depositing her in front of a large set of doors which were probably meant to intimidate. it would take a bit more than that to intimidate  _ her _ , the combination of war-hardened and powerfully magical, but ginny could easily see any other student entering that office with an ingrained awe of the headmaster. she knocked once and waited for quite some time before the door opened, dumbledore’s blue eyes twinkling over half-moon spectacles as he invited her in.

“good evening, miss weasley. why don’t you take a seat? would you like a lemon drop? i’m rather fond of them, they’re a muggle sweet,” the headmaster said, ushering her in and having her sit opposite him.

“i’m good, thank you. what did you want to discuss, headmaster?”

“you know, my dear girl, that your family has always been close to me,” dumbledore began. ginny settled back and prepared for what was certainly going to be a show — the manipulations he used would have washed over any eleven-year-old and she had to admit the impressiveness of his ability. “i know your mother has always wished for you to be a lion. you’re certainly a brave, talented young girl, and you would do well in gryffindor. professor mcgonagall was looking forward to your placement this year. i have reason to suspect there was foul play involved in your sorting to slytherin, and i apologise for not intervening earlier. i cannot imagine slytherin was pleasant to you on your first night in the castle, but i assure you, gryffindor will make that up.”

“thank you, headmaster, but my dorm warmed to me. the carrows were very kind,” ginny said, meeting dumbledore’s eyes and funnelling fake memories in front of her occlumency shields. “and mum won’t be too upset, since everyone else is in gryffindor.”

“you’re certain, my dear? harry potter is in gryffindor, too, and i thought you might enjoy being in his house. your mother has mentioned that you’ve read several of his biographies and become good friends with him over the summer,” dumbledore said.

“yes, i hope we’ll continue our friendship but he  _ is _ very close with ron and granger,” ginny said.

“you could be more to him, though,” dumbledore said, the twinkle in his eye brightening. “you could help keep him on the light and defeat the dark lord with your love. you see, i am afraid harry, the dear boy, experiences inklings of darkness.”

“oh, no!” ginny said, feigning horror. “but — he’s the saviour of the wizarding world!”

“exactly, my dear girl. and he is the heir to the entire potter fortune — that is quite a lot of gold, miss weasley, and many precious artefacts. he must stay to the light, and if you can help him with your love you may even become lady potter,” dumbledore said, as if imparting some great secret. “harry has the potential to become the next dark lord, but your family can keep him in check, and on top of that you can emerge with riches. your mother has already agreed to help, miss weasley, and she believes you will play your role for the greater good, just like ron and miss granger.”

“ron knows about this?” ginny said.

“no, of course not, my dear. only you and your mother, and your mother is already receiving payments from the potter vault, just like harry’s muggle family is so that they can raise harry well. soon, miss granger and ron may know, though it depends on when they realise they no longer want to be harry’s friends. it is hard to be friends with someone like him, you realise, and so some payment seems necessary. how else did you get your school supplies?” dumbledore said.

“the — the goblins said it was part of a settlement,” ginny said, feigning confusion. two could play a game, after all.

dumbledore shook his head as if in disappointment. “the goblins give nothing away for free,” he said, “though i should not be surprised they used my orders to give your family money to try and paint themselves as generous instead of the disgusting hoarders they are.”

“oh,” ginny said, making it come out breathy. “i — i had no idea.”

“it was much information to be imparted on someone so young, but i know you will bear it well. i’ll let you think about it, yes?” dumbledore said. “you must be tired.”

“a little, but hogwarts is amazing. the twins always talked about it, but to be here is completely different,” ginny said, faking her gushing. “maybe — maybe i could stay in slytherin, act as a spy and harry will know and then he might be impressed by my bravery.”

dumbledore’s eyes lit up, thinking he’d gotten another follower. “indeed, miss weasley. you are quite smart, aren’t you? if you are ever stuck, my door will be open, and i’m sure your mother would be willing to help you brew some love potions. have a good night, my dear girl.”

“good night, headmaster,” ginny said, inclining her head before she left.  _ well _ . that certainly hadn’t happened the first time around, although — although that  _ did _ explain why molly treated harry so spectacularly but completely brushed off the signs of abuse from the dursleys, and it explained why, after she’d married harry, molly had continually asked for money. they hadn’t suspected anything and were more than willing to hand it out — they had too much, sometimes, and it felt overwhelming, especially right after the final battle. and it explained how, in fourth year, ron had exploded but easily — and without fight — went back to harry, and how sometimes she’d seen hermione and ron whispering to each other, glaring at harry, after the war, as if his survival had been unexpected and —  _ oh _ . wasn’t it odd that hermione was an unspeakable in the soul department and a good number of falling objects at the quidditch match had had that curse to split one’s soul from the body? wasn’t it odd that oh-so-conveniently, molly hadn’t been able to make it, despite being at every other match, and that the guards had  _ all _ been out of station right as the death eaters happened to storm the party and that it happened right when harry was on shift, without another case to work on? it didn’t infuriate ginny as much as she expected it to; in fact, it was like piecing a puzzle together and then setting it to the side, probably because for now, hermione and ron were genuinely harry’s friends and hermione had watched out for harry, even going to confront ginny about love potions. what infuriated her more was that the  _ dursleys _ were being paid… ginny slammed her occlumency walls down to contain the swirling emotions. it wouldn’t do to have her magic reacting so close to dumbledore’s office, after all, so she hurried on to the room of requirement, glad that the three of them were meeting to discuss voldemuck and, apparently, the new topic of dear old dumbles.

not for the first time, she wondered why fate seemed to find merlin, arthur, and her so bloody interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. genuinely, genuinely dislike the canon characterization of slytherin as the "mainly evil, with a few exceptions" house. it's like the hat looked at each child and was like "so you're going to be good, evil, smart, or invisible, have fun!" and given that ron weasley is literally a child who was fed propaganda against slytherins for his entire life, i think his reaction to ginny's sorting would be understandable if not correct. i think, in the future, they would definitely make up if that were to happen! because obviously ron matures through the series and even when his loyalty and ambition go at odds with one another, his loyalty and sense of what is right always wins out. please do not think i hate ron. he is literally one of my favourite characters because beyond being strategic, he's also fiercely brave and self-sacrificing and emotionally well-rounded at the beginning (and i really wish he continued in that role instead of being swamped by hermione but that's a discussion for another time). he's there for harry when no one else is (except for like, twice, but you will notice! he always comes back and apologizes, which is just as important and shows character growth!) and literally, this boy took a flying car out in the middle of the night to conduct a rescue operation when he was twelve. ronald weasley deserves the World.  
> 2\. you cannot tell me that the slytherins, who admittedly are mostly children and fed blood-purist agendas and know the weasley reputation, just would accept ginny. the slytherins would not. however, a display of power? yes the slytherins would lap that right up because hiss hiss you only count as valid if you're venomous. (i'm sorry for that description. i'm so sorry.)  
> 3\. i just. as the years have went on, i look at albus dumbledore and think "yes he was probably a great strategic man" but there's a reason why generals are generals and not in charge of the safety of an entire school of young children. anyway there were a lot of questionable safety decisions made all to "test harry potter". his justification of the greater good makes him understandable and sometimes a sympathetic character, but i cannot get on board with him except for his four-word speech which introduced harry to hogwarts, because that was a stroke of brilliance.  
> 4\. i am so sorry molly weasley :( you may not have been a perfect mother, but no one is, and you did not deserve the treatment i gave. rip. (yes i saw the trope and yes i used it voluntarily because i found the idea intriguing but it is still slander)  
> 5\. you can pry "voldemuck" from my cold dead hands assuming i ever die and stay dead. the same goes for merlin and morgana's friendship and really anything snarky in the trio.


	7. part vii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the trio come up with a Plan and morgana indulges just a little bit in Vicious Duelling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i... really can do nothing but apologise for my utter inability to maintain a regular schedule when it comes to updates. i don't even have an excuse since the entire thing is written already. i humbly beg for forgiveness.

“you’re telling me that the  _ headmaster _ wants me to walk to my own death and thinks i have the capacity to be the next dark lord, and meanwhile i’ve got a dark lord after  _ me _ and a piece of him in my  _ head _ ,” harry said, with unnecessary emphasis.

“that sounds about right,” draco said offhandedly from where he was sprawled across a chaise, examining his nails like a posh pureblood git.

“well, we’re taking care of the horcruxes, of course. so far, there are only two left and he’ll be dead, unless he manages to get his own body before then, which is  _ highly _ unlikely,” ginny said. “so i think that, over christmas, draco and i will get rid of that horcrux in your head, and before then i’ll find a way to contain fiendfyre to destroy the diary in my possession.”

“and  _ you’re _ from the future and we’ve  _ married _ ,” harry said, screwing his face up. “no offence, gana, but we’re  _ half-siblings _ .”

“yes, screw you, i was doing a pretty good job of ignoring that,” ginny said. “i had no idea that dumbledore’s machinations went this far, although we… suspected, later on. but there are ways to overthrow him, i think… having a cerberus under very minimal protection at hogwarts won’t endear him to any of the parents. and we can get sirius black out of azkaban, if ron’s still got scabbers and we present him to madam bones, and that could bring dumbledore into question. we might have to align with the malfoys to that end, or at least a good number of ancient families who don’t quite like that dumbledore’s been narrowing hogwarts curriculum and deeming traditional rituals beneficial to magical core development as ‘too dark’ magics that should be banned.”

“you’ve done your research,” harry said, looking surprised.

“not everyone’s a clotpole,” ginny said, automatically meeting draco’s high-five. “and have you finished those books i gave you?”

“yeah.” harry didn’t even protest the name-calling. “so once we take care of the dark lord, we… what, take over the ministry?”

“well,” ginny drawled, “that  _ does _ seem like what we’ve been put here to do.”

all three of them smirked. it was terrifying.

if any words could describe the next few weeks, it might’ve been  _ subtle pandemonium. _ ginny nearly set the entire room of requirement on fire when burning the diary — which was now no longer a horcrux, or usable at all, thank the fates — and she was sticking close to harry, to the chagrin of professor snape (who could not complain, because frankly, ginny was a magical prodigy and also never seemed to do anything wrong who also not-so-accidentally revealed her parselmouth ability in the slytherin common room when everyone was present) and the very visible glee of the headmaster.

the headmaster, of course, did not think there was a single thing wrong. the fact that ginny and harry were sliding down into the chamber of secrets to ask the basilisk to eat professor lockhart, the useless defence professor, was evidence to the contrary, not that the headmaster had to know.

“i can  _ not _ believe we’re doing this, gana,” harry said, glaring at her as if it was her fault. it kind of was, but not particularly, because  _ she _ wasn’t the one who killed professor quirrell and thus necessitated his replacement with the utter poncey charlatan that was gilderoy lockhart.

“get used to it,” ginny said. “you’re awfully squeamish for a king,” she jibed when harry jumped as they came face-to-face with the shedded skin of a basilisk.

“won’t it be hungry?” harry said, eyes still on the skin.

“well, not after lockhart. his ego might give her… him? whatever. the basilisk might get indigestion,” ginny said. “and if it’s still hungry, we can ask the house-elves to bring some meat. hopefully we won’t wake the snake.”

“you mean —”

“it’s been in hibernation since fifty years ago, meaning it should be awake now and looking for its meal,” ginny said. “really, do you not remember that lesson on basilisks when we were five and uther was trying to prove how awful magic was?”

“we were  _ five _ ,” harry said, like that excused anything. “let’s just go.” which was also his evasion tactic whenever she reached a sore spot, and in a rare show of mercy ginny let it rest. their footsteps echoed along the chamber until they reached the large, monkey-like statue of salazar.

“well, here we are.”

“wasn’t a looker, was he,” harry said, still staring at the statue. ginny sighed and hissed an instruction for the basilisk to come out. she closed her eyes and slapped a hand over harry’s eyes, too, because you never knew how the idiot would react.

ئ _ hello, i’m ginny. we’ve come to tell you of a meal in the school that you might enjoy. _ ئ  


ئ _ you are both speakers? i am alicante. you will not be harmed by my eyes, they are covered by a second film. what meal do you speak of? _ ئ

they both opened their eyes. harry made an aborted attempt at noise when he saw the swaying, massive form of alicante.

ئ _ he is a danger and a shame on the school. he has blond hair and he smells strongly and overpoweringly of lilacs. his magic is weak, but very slippery. _ ئ

ئ _good. i will eat him, and then i will hibernate. i will wake if needed, if you call, young speakers. may the fates be kind to you._ ئ

it slithered away immediately after, going through the pipes and whispering murdery intent.

“should we be concerned?” harry said, blinking rapidly.

“no, i think it’ll be all taken care of,” ginny said. “so just this christmas to get that awful horcrux out of you and voldemuck will be done for, and then during that time perhaps draco could slip away with scabbers and get the malfoys involved in bringing sirius black out.”

“i don’t think i’ve ever appreciated your plots as much as now,” harry said.

“of course. my most brilliant all were used against you, weren’t they.”

the next morning, lockhart was conspicuously absent. the day after that, the newspapers were only talking about his absence from hogwarts, and where he’d possibly turned up, and now that he was gone the memory charms he’d woven were falling apart, too, and people from the furthest reaches of the world were all coming out with lockhart’s trickery. draco only had to have his father pull a few strings, which his father likely would have done anyway, to get the daily prophet insinuating that perhaps albus dumbledore should have done better in finding a defence professor. by the next week, defence classes were cancelled in favour of self-study, which once again caused an entire month of scathing reports against the headmaster, for somehow, the cerberus hidden in the school last year had come out, too, and it was said that the headmaster’s office was full of howlers.

professor snape may have caught sight of ginny smirking, meeting harry and draco’s eyes, before her gaze landed on dumbledore and immediately flattened into feigned concern. he just raised an eyebrow at her, which she returned with a lopsided, secret smile. for some reason, she felt professor snape wouldn’t be terribly opposed to dumbledore’s downfall.

and so, yule approached. harry fell sick a week before their break, but still showed up to their weekly rendezvous.

“you should be  _ immunised _ against this sort of thing,” draco was complaining.

harry jolted up. “i should be  _ what _ ? i’ve never gotten immunizations.”

“you should’ve, madam pomfrey checks at our physical at the beginning of the year,” draco said, his eyebrows beginning to squish together.

“i —  _ what _ ?” harry said.

ginny took a deep breath and counted to ten, controlling the roiling magic under her skin. “well, then,” she said, “don’t go to madam pomfrey. at the end of the year, go to the goblins. you can claim all your vaults then and get  _ their _ healers to do a checkup, and if we’re lucky, we can bring it against dumbles, too.”

“you don’t trust pomfrey?” harry said.

draco scoffed. “she owes her  _ job _ to dumbledore. don’t risk it,” he said. “we haven’t got the power yet to move so blindly. oh, gana, i think there are some fifth year slytherins out for your blood. you’ll probably be challenged to a duel or something.”

ginny smiled. “oh,  _ finally _ . goddess above, i thought they’d never get around to it.” and she hurried to the common room where, true to draco’s word, three fifth-years she didn’t recognise were waiting for her. the first years were looking at her worriedly; she ignored their gazes and stepped into the half-formed ring.

“well,  _ blood traitor _ —”

she didn’t let them finish. wordlessly and wandlessly, she let the floor under them turn to liquid. before their heads plummeted in, she resolidified the stone. “constant vigilance, darlings,” she said, letting her wand slide out of its holster and cursing them with the bat bogey hex.

“er —” hestia carrow, normally so elegant, said.

“what did they want?” ginny said, eyes raking over the rest of the crowd, composed of almost every slytherin, no matter their year.

“they said you were a blood traitor and spending too much time with the  _ potter _ boy,” blaise zabini, a second year, drawled. he seemed to be assessing her.

her smile turned sharklike. “oh, the heir to the potter and peverell lines? odd, i thought we were all for political allies, especially in the fight to return some of the old traditions.” she turned to isabella, who was doing a rather good job at keeping a poker face, even though curiosity swirled in her eyes. there was the hint of magical displacement and she whirled around, wresting control of the magic; she let it pool in front of her into a ball before letting the energy dissipate. “to a first year’s  _ back _ , no less,” she said, the sneer more familiar on morgana’s face than the current body. no one stopped her when she left again, taking the first year girls with her. hopefully, someone else would be able to release those three fifth years, or professor snape would have to haul them out of the stone floor for classes the next morning.

that night, she dreamt, far less pleasing than the normal dreams of wandering stone hallways and learning how to float a feather for charms.

instead, the surroundings were obviously the room of requirement — she’d never seen the setting before — and harry was lying on arthur’s camelot bed (but really the two of them were the same and she had to get that in her head before she went  _ insane _ from looking at  _ harry _ in  _ arthur _ — no. same person.) while she and draco stood by the side of him. there was a  _ lot _ of blood. perhaps the sheets had been white before, and it was only the red of camelot because of their blood; she couldn’t tell. from a far-off place, almost like what she imagined disassociating would feel like, she watched as their eyes lit gold. almost immediately, harry — so small, so  _ fragile _ at his twelve-abused-years — started writhing,  _ screaming _ . they filled her ears. she thought she might burst, even as tears sprang to their eyes which remained fiercely, stubbornly golden as they tried to separate a soul piece grafted to arthur. ginny took a breath and prepared herself to see the rest of the ritual, even as she hoped that they might time-skip — sometimes, her visions did that, and mostly it was bloody inconvenient, but  _ of course _ the one time she wanted it to happen, it didn’t. the screaming continued for what was probably hours in real-time and was most  _ definitely _ hours in dream-time. then, finally, there was a flash, like tv static, and ginny saw a black wisp disappearing above harry, whose blue eyes were wide open and relieved, and on the sides she and draco looked on the verge of collapse, gold leached from their eyes. as harry whispered “thank the  _ fates _ ”, something wispy and floating, his eyes closed and went to sleep, the red of his scar dulled, while she and draco collapsed on sofas that the room of requirement kindly provided.

well, at least she knew everything would be fine. 

(or… those were fighting words when it came to the fates . she really should have known.)


	8. part viii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what happens when the dark lord dies?? well, the trio takes a very long nap and then goes on to deal with a light lord. minimal rest for the wicked and all that.

there had to be something oddly poetic in the juxtaposition of little harry, lying in a large camelot bed — albeit with white sheets instead of red, which meant the red really  _ had _ come from blood, in which case ginny was glad they had the foresight to bring blood replenishing potions to last for centuries — and her half-brother, king arthur pendragon. the eyes, however, were exactly the same, reminding draco and ginny that  _ yes _ , this was the same person.

“we’re ready?” he said, nerves hidden in his voice and the tense set of his fingers. both draco and ginny didn’t mention it.

“yes,” draco said, already moving for a dagger. “ready to pour blood over this bed, gana?” ginny, who had been uncapping all the blood replenishing potions, wrinkled her nose and caught the silver dagger draco flipped at her.

“i’m glad neither of us is squeamish,” ginny muttered, already drawing one long gash down her arm where her larger blood vessels were. “can we duplicate this with our magic?” she took a potion like a shot of liquor.

“we should save our power. we can’t get too exhausted,” draco replied. so they continued, drinking potions like trelawney drank sherry (although that was a fair way to cope with watching the universe screw the future over! perhaps ginny should try alcohol sometime. maybe not at eleven. well… maybe a  _ little _ at eleven. as far as ginny remembered, hangovers were hell.) and dripping blood like they were trying to dye the sheets a permanent red.

“i hate this,” ginny muttered. the scent of blood was starting to grow thick in the room, coppery and raw. “bloody hell.”

“you barely believe in hell,” draco replied. “nearly done, i think.”

he was right — ginny could feel old magic flowing to her fingertips faster now, anticipating its use like a collection of sparks. “should we begin?” she said, already moving back and performing minimal healing on the long gash. if the ritual was successful, the rest of it would be healed, but she couldn’t be bleeding to death before the ritual finished. draco stepped back and did the same, nodding his approval.

“on three?”

“on three,” ginny said. “one — two — three.” there was a pause and then the magic flew out of them, as if it knew how much would have to be used, and their eyes were blinding like the force of mini-suns; soft chanting of a relic language from a half-forgotten past filled the room, eviscerating the scent of blood, and in minutes harry was  _ screaming. _ they continued. they couldn’t stop now; if they did, the magical backlash would raze hogwarts, reduce it to mere cobble, and while  _ arguably _ that would take care of the horcrux and thus lord voldemort and also potentially kill one corrupt light lord, they were also trying to take care of problems without sinking an entire ship of magical students.

hours passed. the screams rose and fell like ocean waves, slowed, and the magic continued to build. ginny tasted copper at the back of her throat and redrew her attention to the torrents of gold leaving her, whirling with draco’s magic to snip and pull to detach the soul piece in harry. his eyes had turned red, the soul’s last attempt at saving itself. their voices, somehow, didn’t grow hoarse.

and  _ finally _ — his screams ratcheted up to one last crescendo, their eyes burned gold, and one last tug was made to pull out the faintest silvery wisp from his head, where the scar was a bright, bleeding scarlet. in seconds the thing turned black and crumbled to ashes and harry looked up, eyes blue again, whispering his relief before he slumped into sleep.

“cheers,” draco murmured before he collapsed on his sofa. ginny used one last burst of her magic to clean everything up before she, too, went to sleep.

in albania, a wraith screamed and turned to dust so fine it seemed to not exist. death grinned and herded it to the afterlife with its sickle.

in areas across wizarding europe, witches and wizards jolted with a shock in their left forearms; they lifted their sleeves and saw the black lines of the dark mark writhing and receding until it was  _ gone _ . (in azkaban, bellatrix screamed as the last straw broke. sirius black, even as padfoot, felt a flare of hope. harry was  _ safe, safe, safe _ .)

in hogwarts, professor snape hurried to the headmaster with good news. the headmaster’s eyes lost their twinkle.

and hours later, hogwarts noticed the absence of harry potter. they started a witch hunt as peter pettigrew, rat form, scrabbled uselessly in his unbreakable cage.

ginny  _ really _ should have known better than to think the universe would let them off so easily.

draco awoke first. he took peter pettigrew and transported himself to malfoy manor, where his father would be, hopefully without a dark mark. maybe he’d get father to ask the goblins to make a statement on the dark lord’s official death, too, in addition to getting sirius black out of prison. lucius malfoy may not have liked black, but there was something to be said for a pureblood of the most ancient and noble house of black being thrown into azkaban without a trial.

ginny awoke second. she stayed in the room of requirement, puzzling over last-minute plans. their strikes would have to be swift, one after another, if they were to dispose of the light lord. it wouldn’t be difficult — albus dumbledore was already being questioned for his decisions with hogwarts, and sirius black’s trial would bring much more to light, hopefully swaying more people away from dumbledore. and finally, the last attack would be towards the middle of summer, when wizengamot would start to draw to a close; harry potter’s placement with the dursleys, albus dumbledore’s neglect as a magical guardian, and hopefully dumbledore’s manipulation of a young heir to the line of potter. and that wouldn’t be hard to prove — if ginny testified it would get them those results. dumbledore had indirectly encouraged her to use love potions to get into harry’s pants, after all.

but one at a time — if they were lucky, lucius malfoy would get them a lawyer for that cause. if not, ginny would have to do the research herself and perhaps take some age potions so she could do so as lady lefay. then, she was sure, lucius malfoy would take advantage of the sudden power vacuum and bring the so-called “dark” rituals back. problem solved.

“morgana?” harry muttered, his voice thick. “goddess above, i’m sore.”

idly, ginny flicked a soothing spell at him. “ready to face the music? draco’s already gone with the rat to malfoy manor, but someone’s likely noticed our disappearance by now.”

harry groaned. “yeah, okay, let’s go.”

they were  _ not _ prepared to be accosted by professor mcgonagall the moment they stepped into the great hall.

“everyone was looking for you! where were you!” she exclaimed.

“sorry, professor,” harry said. “ginny and i were talking, we lost track of time.”

professor mcgonagall was now looking between the two of them suspiciously. “no, it can’t be… too young,” she murmured. ginny caught most of it and immediately tried to hide her instinctive grimace. “well, then, mr potter and miss weasley. i shall let the headmaster know you’ve been found,” she said.

“why were they looking for us?” ginny said.

professor mcgonagall pursed her lips. ginny skimmed her mind lightly and saw professor snape’s bare left forearm. so, unintended side-effects of ridding the world of voldemort — no wonder the headmaster wanted to find harry. he’d probably expected the saviour to be dead on hogwarts grounds, which would be terrible for his reputation.

that night, ginny entered professor snape’s office.

“miss weasley. how can i help you?” professor snape said, looking like he’d sucked on a sour lemon.

“how’s your forearm?” ginny said. “did it give any warning before it disappeared? did it hurt?”

professor snape sputtered. “miss weasley —”

ginny sighed. “look into my eyes, professor,” she said, and when he did she let her magic form fire in her palm as her eyes went gold. “my soul is ancient, severus snape. horcruxes would not stop me from fate’s whims, and if they wanted a dark lord dead, it would happen.”

his eyes went wider. ginny hadn’t thought it possible. “so  _ you’re _ the — the sorting hat mentioned you. seventh daughter of the seventh son… you’d have to be one of them. the shadowed phoenix, or magic?” he murmured.

“the shadowed phoenix,” ginny said, letting the flame die out. “you know magic as your godson and the future king… or the once and future king, i suppose, as the saviour of the wizarding world.”

“and now that you’re done with the dark lord’s demise, where will you go?” snape said, taking all the information in remarkably well.

“oh, we’re nowhere  _ near _ done,” ginny said. “can you keep a secret?” she mused.

snape glared. “i was a  _ spy _ .”

“i mean, can you keep a secret from the headmaster?”

“i’ll swear it on my magic,” snape said, and promptly performed the rite. ginny smiled.

“now comes the politics. the world is a careful balance, and where there is one insane dark lord, there will be a corrupted light lord. however, murder without defaming him first seems rather pointless, especially with his knowledge of harry’s abuse with the dursleys and his remarkable nonattempts to stop it.”

“ _ what _ ?!”

“oh, dear, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”


	9. part ix.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and the light lord's reign is over!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this was surprisingly fun and we're almost to the end!! thanks to whoever's read this, love you lol

brick by brick, albus dumbledore could feel his reputation crumbling. it had started in october, when professor lockhart had mysteriously disappeared, and not even  _ he _ knew where the professor went to. the newspapers, those garbage rags, had gotten wind of the news, and then lucius malfoy — that  _ insufferable _ fool who thought he was so much higher than everyone else — gently insinuated that  _ perhaps _ , just  _ perhaps _ , it was the fault of the headmaster. this view was quickly very popular, especially when  _ more _ news leaked about the dangers of the forbidden forest (acromantula, one student claimed) and the cerberus they’d kept to guard the philosopher’s stone last year (from augusta longbottom, whom albus dumbledore was going to  _ end _ . painfully. slowly. except not yet, because the dark marks may have disappeared and the goblins may have tried to fool everyone by claiming tom riddle’s death, but tom riddle was certainly floating around and neville longbottom was the backup chosen one. and if war needed longbottom, his grandmother would push him to do his duty for the greater good.)

but  _ now _ — oh, he’d thought it wouldn’t sink lower than the howlers filling his office, but no. now, the daily prophet was with the news that sirius black was  _ freed _ , that peter pettigrew was alive and had been a pet rat with ronald weasley, who slept in the same dorm as harry potter, meaning a death eater had literally been rooming with the saviour of the wizarding world! his eardrums were still thrumming with the last howler sent and there were  _ so many more to go _ . and sirius black had gone and testified under veritaserum and revealed that dumbledore had known  _ everything, _ including the switch in secret-keeper, and had found time to testify for snape but not for black.

things were falling apart rather miserably, but at least ginny weasley was keeping harry potter in check with her constant presence. he’d suspect that she’d already fed him love potions, what with how close they were, but it was oddly unlike obsession which strong love potions often brought on. well, it was good that the potter boy liked ginny and that ginny was willing to do her part for the greater good, even if she had to be bribed with the title of lady potter.

he missed the way harry and ginny exchanged excited, secret smirks when they received their daily prophet and saw the vitriol spewed against dumbledore and the release of sirius black. severus snape, however, didn’t; the man and former spy took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, suppressing the urge to plant his face on the table. ancient souls or not, the entire world was infuriatingly childish. he caught sight of both harry and ginny looking up at him in evident amusement; he raised an eyebrow. immediately, harry seemed to snort as ginny laughed softly, and the two of them turned to each other again. severus wondered how he’d missed their sibling-like bond before all of this mess.

“exactly like gaius,” ginny said, still in good humour. “potions, the eyebrow raise, taking care of merlin.”

“scary until you know him,” harry tacked on. “when do you think draco’s coming back, by the way?”

“oh, he’ll be at the malfoy yule ball to help supplant rumours and fan the flames against dumbles,” ginny said. “he gave me both our presents, as he expected you to be impatient and open yours before yule.” harry descended to barely-coherent grumbling as ginny calmly sipped her tea.

things, however, continued to go downhill for dumbledore, even as he put into action his contingency plans where he infiltrated the ministry and newspapers and tried to bribe them or call in favours. this did not work particularly well; after knowing that he did, indeed, place a cerberus in the school, not many could trust him. the sacrifices he made for the greater good — no matter. what was a larger, oh-no, big-terrible-bad-day matter was that he no longer had his elder wand by his side.

it had, in fact, somehow appeared in a sleeping ginny’s loosely-clutched fist the night before yule. it had chosen a new master — or mistress, in this case — and dumbledore was eventually forced to return to his old wand when he couldn’t track the elder wand.

meanwhile, that same night, a small stone, no larger than the inside of a snitch and engraved with the symbol of the deathly hallows, appeared in draco malfoy’s pocket. in the gryffindor dorms, the invisibility cloak wrapped itself over a sleeping harry.

the deathly hallows were not  _ reunited _ , technically, but also, they’d been reunited. not that the trio knew; they were too busy plotting ways for harry to bring forth his story for maximum effectiveness and maximum jailtime for albus too-many-middle-names dumbledore. and if they had known, they would not have been particularly pleased. as it was, over the summer before third year, when harry had met up with sirius black and let him take guardianship and met remus lupin, too, they all went to malfoy manor. ginny was already there, having transported herself past the wards and straight to the sitting room where lord and lady malfoy were waiting with their son.

“hello,” she said.

“ _ gana _ ,” draco groaned.

“we were going to have to break it to them anyway,” ginny said unapologetically. “i don’t think i even told you and arthur, but i’m the lady of the lefay house.”

“that’s extinct.”

“yes, well, my  _ soul _ —”

“oh, wow,” draco said. “wait, so would i be lord emrys —”

“you had  _ children _ ?” ginny said, wrinkling her nose. “i didn’t, i just had cousins and such to carry on the lefay name after you killed me.”

“i’m sorry, children, but what’s going on?” lady malfoy interjected.

“should we have had severus explain it to them first?” draco said.

“well, it’s certainly not too late to ask him,” ginny said. “give me a second.”

“did you establish a mental link with him? you can do that with people out of the old religion?” draco asked. ginny hushed him. moments later, the fireplace crackled to life with green flames. at the same time, black, lupin, and harry arrived.

it was undoubtedly a very awkward meeting. still, they all left with better plans, if with a little less sanity and a little more alcohol. sirius black had thrown a squat, square glass full of whiskey into lucius’s face at one point, claiming that it was to satisfy his inner child, and lucius had responded in kind. it was only through remus lupin physically holding back sirius and narcissa malfoy staring down her husband that the two backed down; then, ginny’s eyes had went gold to clean up the mess and they’d settled down and continued drawing a timeline for their plans. ginny would, apparently, be accompanying harry to claim his titles and address the illegal withdrawals dumbledore had hinted at making, and hopefully the professor wouldn’t pay them any mind. if they did that the next day, they could make a charge to wizengamot towards the end of the summer session, which could then branch off into the issues of neglect, manipulation, and abuse, and with veritaserum and undoubtable memories and health records, there was almost no leeway for dumbledore to twinkle his way out of legal punishment. it turned out that once most, if not all, of the tension was out of the way, their group was a frighteningly efficient, brutal one. dumbledore wouldn’t know what had hit him.

the very next day, ginny and harry were at gringotts, bright and early. harry was still yawning as ginny went up to the very last goblin teller and asked for the potter account manager. harry was still yawning when he claimed his heir rings. he was no longer yawning when he realised that, for some odd reason, he and draco and ginny were sharing custody (was that how it worked) for the leadership of the slytherin house.

“what?” he managed to ask the goblin, blue eyes widened.

“well, it seems you three ended the dark lord together, and so by right of conquest, you three have control of the slytherin house,” the goblin said.

“we’re going to keep  _ that _ under wraps, we do not need rumours of polyamory here,” harry muttered. ginny patted his back sympathetically, although it was more slapping than patting, and she continued to talk to the goblin about what could possibly be done about albus dumbledore going against the potters’s will and withdrawing money to make large lump sum payments to the dursleys, himself, and molly weasley. when the goblin healer arrived, ginny sent harry off and continued to discuss with the goblin in rather sharp, bloodthirsty tones, vaguely feral.

it was lunchtime when they finally exited the large, marble building and stepped into the sunlight. “florean fortescue’s for ice cream, or a proper lunch?” ginny said.

because she was with harry and neither had very good impulse control — she suspected it had to do with being siblings — they went and got ice cream.

“so your half went well, then?” harry said.

“the missive’s already been sent to dumbles. what about you?”

harry grimaced. “plenty of abusive history, not much of it treated, although i’m on a potions regime now,” he said. “i’ll be giving a copy of the files to lucius malfoy. i suppose it can’t be helped.”

“no, none of us are quite legal yet, especially if we don’t want to draw attention as being reincarnated,” ginny said. harry sighed and bit his ice cream. ginny shuddered, feeling the imaginary pain on her own teeth.

and then it was a game of patience. the newspapers were more than thrilled to pick up where their subtle beginning moves left off — they theorised, brought dumbledore’s less-than-perfect past with gellert grindelwald to light, and with each article, tarnished his reputation a little more. ginny distracted herself by continuing to write up her work on modern magic’s effect on electricity; draco went around creating unnecessary spells at leisure; and arthur learned the entire hogwarts curriculum in stress. harry always had a brilliant mind — it just took a bit to turn it on, was all, and so ginny stood by her belief that gwen did a much better job at running camelot. and finally,  _ finally _ , it was the day of confrontation. ginny, who knew how it would turn out since three weeks ago, firmly did not allow anyone to know, preferring to keep them in suspense just for personal amusement, and instead secretively baked a celebration cake. when lord malfoy was late in returning from the wizengamot session, ginny was remarkably unfazed and so everyone else took up her tune, too.

“we must have won, or else gana would be throwing a hissy fit,” draco said.

“oh, screw you, too,” ginny said, flicking a small fireball at his hair. draco yelped and ducked while neutralising it.

ginny was in the kitchens, organising the malfoy elves for a celebration feast complete with champagne, when lord malfoy returned, greeted with an impressive yell which must have come from sirius.

“how’d it go, lucy?!” he exclaimed.

“get off of me, you  _ mutt _ ,” lucius said, but his words were less biting and just-barely-fond when he spoke. “i’ll tell you when you let me get inside the damned house.”

“so it went well?” remus said.

“didn’t morgana say?” lucius said, who seemed to prefer morgana to ginny. 

“of bloody course not,” harry said. “we could guess from her behaviour, of course, but you don’t really know until it happens, do you.”

ginny waltzed out of the kitchen. “i heard you!” she called. “hello, lord malfoy. should we enter the dining hall? i asked the elves to prepare a feast, i hope you don’t mind.”

“not at all, dear,” narcissa said, who, to draco’s chagrin, had a soft spot for ginny. they moved to the dining hall.

“did they make use of the memories i gave the aurors?” ginny asked.

“they did. they also had molly weasley testify under veritaserum,” lucius said. “everything went exactly as planned. soon, we can start repealing bans on dark magic and perhaps bring more knowledge to hogwarts.”

“good,” ginny said, and there was vicious glint in the trio’s eyes. the adults gulped and hastily all took their seats, gesturing for the three to join them.

“i wonder if you can hold your liquor in this body, draco?” harry said.

draco grinned. “oh, you’re on.”

“draco,” lucius began, looking pained. then he shook his head. “carry on, never mind.”

“i’ll have my house-elf bring some hangover potion over, shall i,” severus said.

that was an entirely wise decision on severus’s part. even ginny ended up taking a bit, though everyone could swear she hadn’t been drunk last night — or at least not like harry or draco or sirius or lucius had been. she and narcissa had painted each other’s nails while remus played the piano, actually, while gradually sipping champagne.

and the next morning, the front page of the newspapers had one similarity: they were all about albus dumbledore’s arrest and the reincarnations of three historical figures. sirius black, after all, had testified under veritaserum at the first half of the day.

“right, it’s time to make use of the lefay inheritance,” ginny decided. “we’re going to take our newts and then hide out at my place.”

“perfect,” said draco, who was all for the idea of getting out of hogwarts.

“a stellar idea,” said harry, who was all for the idea of getting out of the limelight for once.

“excellent, then,” said ginny, who was just relieved that the three of them had not imploded the world and didn’t want to run that risk any more than necessary.


	10. part x.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just a short conclusion, mostly cracky :)

the shadows, inky, were moving and crawling out and forming a solid, corporeal  _ figure _ . it was literally three in the afternoon, sun slanting through the windows and dust motes glittering, and there was a shadowy mass of humanoid standing in the lefay manor’s sitting room, where draco was playing the piano and ginny and harry were gleefully debating the intricacies of mixing technology with magic and the theory of how balance played into modern magic; abruptly, they all stiffened and fell silent. they’d shut themselves into the lefay manor after withdrawing from hogwarts and taking their newts — of course, passing with perfect marks — meaning to stay mostly hidden away from the celebrity of being  _ the _ merlin, morgana, and arthur reincarnate.

evidently, they were going to die because of it, because no one knew where the lefay manor  _ was _ and now there was this creepy shadow dude radiating death standing in the middle of their sitting room, somehow bypassing each ward against both old and modern magic.

“hello,” the figure said, and it took off a layer of inky darkness to reveal a rather good-looking human face.

“sorry, who are you?” harry said, blue eyes tracking the figure’s movement as he took a seat opposite them.

“you assembled my hallows,” the figure said, gazing at them — the invisibility cloak hanging on the coat hanger, the elder wand in ginny’s wand holster, and the resurrection stone worn in draco’s silver ring.

dawning comprehension had the three of them panicking. “oh, hell no. no. absolutely  _ not _ ,” draco said. “this is ridiculous. i mean, please, haven’t we suffered enough?”

“i miss the afterlife,” harry said plaintively.

“screw this,” ginny muttered.

“so you do know who i am! i’m fate’s son, death,” he said. “or, well, you might think of fate as magic.”

“ _ screw _ this,” ginny said more emphatically.

“how did you not see this?!” harry exclaimed.

“she wouldn’t have, i’m the literal death,” death chirped, much more cheerful than death should be. harry ran his hands through his hair in aggravation, leaving clumps of it sticking up.

“wait, if we’re the master of death —” draco began.

“which is odd because we’re not one person, so we couldn’t have assembled the hallows, but go off i guess —” harry, who had recently been talking up muggle high-schoolers, interrupted.

“— then does that mean we can die now and go back to the afterlife?” draco finished.

death shook his head. “i’m afraid that’s not how it works. you three are destined to be the master of death until eternity comes to a close.”

“so you mean for forever,” ginny said drily. “when did our lives start going downhill so quickly?”

“probably when you caught that cursed time-turner,” draco sniped.

“oh, but there are so many fun things to do as the masters of death,” death said. “i mean, to be perfectly clear, you’re not my masters. you’re my companions, of a sort, except mother’s assigned them. fortunately, i think i like you, so we’ll probably not have too many problems.”

“what things can we do?” harry said, who was remarkably keeping a calm head now that he had quickly processed and compartmentalised for further processing.

“oh, dimension travel, time travel, that sort of thing,” death said. “you could go to a world full of fae, or one with no magic, or one where everything is upside down.”

“could we go to hogwarts again?” draco said. “i mean later, of course. decades later.”

“whatever for?” ginny said.

“well, for kicks and giggles,” harry said.

death nodded in approval. the three new immortals tried to clamp down on their sense of impending doom. this was  _ not  _ — no matter how hard anyone tried to sell it — going to be fun.


End file.
